Global Coffee Report November 2023

November/December 2023

Connection and

Chair of the Löfbergs Board and coffee&climate initiative, Kathrine Löfberg, on long-term responsibility, and how a small family business has evolved into one of the Nordic’s largest roasters.

AI: help or hindrance?

How the technology is already making its mark

Money talks

Coffee price dynamics impact an entire supply chain

Automation audience Companies take technology to the next level

www.gcrmag.com

CONTENTS November/December 2023

IN THIS ISSUE

FEATURES 10

IN THE GENES World Coffee Research on how its Arabica genetic fingerprinting database will increase traceability

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52

MICE MOMENTS The Melbourne International Coffee Expo will return for 2024

INDUSTRY PROFILES 26

AN EXTENDED FAMILY Brambati on the importance of maintaining close customer relationships

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28

THE FUTURE OF BREWING Tone discusses its latest brewing and extraction technology and the simplicity of its nextgeneration equipment

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44

A STEAM SOLUTION

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A NEW ERA Cimbali Group launches a range of new equipment to add to its product portfolio

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46

AUTOMATION FEATURE 40

BECOMING A PILOT How Probat’s Pilot 2020 software can control the coffee roasting process from a computer

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IN THE USER’S HANDS Franke discusses its

LEVEL UP WMF unveils the 1500 F coffee machine and explains why automation is more important than ever

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ALL THE ANSWERS

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Chair of the Löfbergs Board and coffee&climate initiative, Kathrine Löfberg, on how a small family business has evolved into one of the Nordic’s largest, and oldest, coffee roasting enterprises.

“I WANT TO ESTABLISH A COMMUNITY AROUND COFFEE IN THE BIGGER SENSE OF THE WORD, AND SEE THE END CONSUMER CONTRIBUTE TO [THE] FAIRNESS OF COFFEE FARMERS.” Kathrine Löfberg Chair Löfbergs Board

Schaerer’s Coffee Link Portal system and cloud technology provides statistical solutions

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A STEADY HAND Poursteady explains why the automatic pour-over machine might not only mean a shorter wait time for a coffee, but a better cup

THE NEXT GENERATION Syntegon introduces the Package Maker PKD, the newest member in a long line of packaging solutions

THE HUMAN CONNECTION Eversys expands its community of coffee ambassadors with the inclusion of the 2023 World Barista Champion

Thermoplan unveils the Black&White4 CTS superautomatic machine

CULTIVATING CUBAN Lavazza launches the La Reserva de ¡Tierra!

Cuba blend

PrecisionFoam technology, and how the Mytico line is versatile to suit any barista

TECHNOLOGY PROFILES

ENTER THE FUTURE How artificial intelligence is already helping the coffee industry save time and money

HOMEGROWN SUCCESS Cafetto on its devotion to developing a cleaning product range that suits every coffee machine

MONEY TALK Digital Coffee Future explores how coffee prices impact stakeholders and the wider industry

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CONNECTION AND IMPACT The Chair of the Löfbergs Board on being an active voice for sustainable coffee production

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15

COVER STORY

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LAST WORD 58

INTRODUCING N°20 Nespresso launches a new and bespoke coffee cultivated for superior taste

REGULARS 04 06 54 56

EDITOR’S NOTE NEWS DRIP BY DRIP MARKETPLACE DIARY DASHBOARD

50 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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EDITOR’S NOTE Global Coffee Report

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Christine Clancy christine.clancy@primecreative.com.au EDITOR Sarah Baker sarah.baker@primecreative.com.au

A MORAL COMPASS WHEN YOU’RE TRULY PASSIONATE about something, there’s a type of fixation and narrowing of focus that guides your decision making. For some, it could be a path towards sustainability, or a set goal for growth, and for leaders like Kathrine Löfberg, Chair of Löfbergs Board, her moral compass has guided her to make decisions that positively impact the people and the livelihoods behind the product her family company creates.

It’s one thing to make a great tasting product and maintain high levels of consistency, but it’s another to put people over profit and realise that without a structure that supports the most vulnerable members of the coffee supply chain, the future of a 117-year-old global roasting business will always be unpredictable. One is very much dependent on the other.

In my conversation with Kathrine for this edition’s cover story, it was clear her family has shared this awareness and responsibility from the beginning. Her great grandfather would navigate trips from Sweden to origin in the 1940s to meet the coffee producers.

It was a time when flying was long and expensive. Her grandfather and father did the same.

When Kathrine made her first origin trip to Brazil as a teenager, she says it was the people she met that left a lasting impression.

This memory would become the catalyst for a career within the Löfbergs family business, co-founding the International Coffee Partners along with eight other prominent international roasters, launching the Era of We platform that connects producers with suppliers, and more recently partnering with the coffee&climate initiative (c&c).

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I heard Kathrine speak about c&c at this year’s Lets Talk Coffee event in Honduras.

Even while dialling-in remote, her voice shone as a true advocate for sustainable coffee production. It’s her passion and ability to leave competition aside for the greater good of the industry that she hopes will inspire more businesses to do the same.

Recently, an interactive virtual community called Digital Coffee Future hosted a Coffee Prices and Technology Summit. It united different representatives of the supply chain to explore how coffee price dynamics are impacting more than just coffee, and how technology can play a role in mitigating the challenges that arise from price instability and sustainability.

Conversation is always the first step, backing it up with action is the second.

The industry continues to be vocal about its challenges and triumphs, and as we conclude another year, we reflect on the first year that Covid hasn’t dominated headlines, nor logistics or adverse weather events, but that doesn’t mean we’re spared from more challenges to come. True leaders simply focus on what’s important, who’s important, and let their moral compass guide the way.

My compass has led me to Italy where I write this letter on the eve of Host Milano, eager to reconnect with the international coffee community and have meaningful conversations about the direction of our industry, and the path that will lead us there.

Sarah Baker Editor, Global Coffee Report

JOURNALISTS Hayley Ralph hayley.ralph@primecreative.com.au Dominic Morrell dominic.morrell@primecreative.com.au ART DIRECTOR/DESIGN Daz Woolley HEAD OF DESIGN Blake Storey blake.storey@primecreative.com.au DESIGN PRODUCTION MANAGER Michelle Weston michelle.weston@primecreative.com.au BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING ACCOUNT MANAGER Adele Haywood adele.haywood@primecreative.com.au CLIENT SUCCESS Ben Griffiths ben.griffiths@primecreative.com.au PHOTOGRAPHY Fredrik Karlsson HEAD OFFICE Prime Creative Pty Ltd 379 Docklands Drive, Docklands, Victoria 3008 p: +61 3 9690 8766 f: +61 3 9682 0044 enquiries@primecreative.com.au www.gcrmag.com SUBSCRIPTIONS +61 3 9690 8766 subscriptions@primecreative.com.au

Global Coffee Report Magazine is available by subscription from the publisher. The rights of refusal are reserved by the publisher.

ARTICLES

All articles submitted for publication become the property of the publisher. The Editor reserves the right to adjust any article to conform with the magazine format.

COPYRIGHT

Global Coffee Report is owned and published by Prime Creative Media. All material in Global Coffee Report Magazine is copyright and no part may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means (graphic, electronic or mechanical including information and retrieval systems) without written permission of the publisher. The Editor welcomes contributions but reserves the right to accept or reject any material. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information Prime Creative Media will not accept responsibility for errors or omissions or for any consequences arising from reliance on information published. The opinions expressed in Global Coffee Report are not necessarily the opinions of, or endorsed by the publisher unless otherwise stated.

NEWS In brief

NEWS DRIPBYDRIP Artificial intelligence is making its mark on the international coffee industry.

further as it hopes to keep the positive momentum and growth of the expo moving forward.

See page 52.

EUROPE

23 AMERICAS World Coffee Research has released an Arabica coffee genetic fingerprint database that will make variety authentication cheaper and simpler.

The reference database was validated and refined using more than 30,000 leaf samples from trees in six countries including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Peru between 2021 and 2023.

See page 15.

La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is a part of La Reserva de ¡Tierra! collection, in which every blend contains coffees from communities involved in social responsibility projects, promoted and managed by Lavazza Foundation.

Since 2004, Lavazza Foundation has promoted and financed international sustainability projects in the countries where coffee is cultivated. The Lavazza Foundation currently supports 33 projects in 20 countries reaching over 180,000 beneficiaries.

See page 30.

Poursteady automatic brewers are designed to bring unprecedented speed, precision, and reliability to commercial coffee retailers and better

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coffee to their customers by combining automation, information technology, and design. The brand’s first product, the PS1 five-cup system, was launched at the 2015 Specialty Coffee Expo in the United States, where it took home the Best New Product award. In 2016, Poursteady launched the PS1-3 threecup system, then unveiled the PS2 two-cup system in April 2023 at the Specialty Coffee Expo.

See page 50.

ASIA PACIFIC Cafetto first achieved brand recognition when Founder Chris Short successfully proposed sponsorship of the World Coffee Championships in 2008, a relationship Short has nurtured over the past 15 years. This presence on the world stage, in addition to exhibiting at international trade shows, establishing association partnerships, and building customer relationships in person, is what Cafetto credits to its growth.

See page 34.

Over 10,000 attendees walked through the doors of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo 2023 to see 125 exhibitors visiting from 56 countries.

The 2024 show will expand even

Löfbergs was one of the five leading family-owned European coffee companies to form non-profit organisation International Coffee Partners (ICP) in 2001, to help achieve a fair and sustainable coffee sector in all producing countries. The ICP, now a group of eight businesses, has worked with organisations to improve coffee quality, productivity, and the selling of coffee. It has reached more than 110,000 smallholder families in 13 countries since its establishment.

See page 10.

Digital Coffee Future hosted the Coffee Prices and Technology Summit: Trends, Margins and Pay Gap from 25 to 26 October. The online event – sponsored by Fairtrade International, Algrano, the International Trade Center, and M-Cultivo – brought together speakers from around the globe and every node of the coffee value stream.

See page 19.

28 90 The percentage of production output Lofbergs' head office and roastery in Karlstad is responsible for.

The Tone Touch 04 boilerless brewer.

GCR | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

FRANKE

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29.09.2023 11:46:04

NEWS In brief

Professors and industry experts weigh in on how artificial intelligence is helping the coffee industry save time and money in its operations. According to Dr Sean Holden, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cambridge University, people have been deploying AI concepts for 30 years.

Simonelli Group is one of many companies in the coffee manufacturing market to begin incorporating AI into operations through its Virtual Intelligent Scale. B2B supplier of tea and coffee solutions, Finlays, uses AI software to provide an instant overview of flavours used in a market or category.

See page 23.

Additional new developments are on the horizon for Brambati thanks to its research and development team include systems for abatement of volatile organic substances such as volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides in roasting plants. This will reduce emissions by 30 and 75 per cent respectively, compared to 2021 when its grinders used 10 per cent of the compressed air consumed.

See page 26.

Tone debuted the Touch 04 boilerless brewer at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Portland, the United States, from 21 to 23 April. The Touch 03 was originally designed for pour over brewing and small quantities of coffee of up to 1.5 litres, whereas the Touch 04 offers brewing capabilities from one up to four litres.

See page 28.

Thermoplan Area Sales Manager Martin Ulrich says the new Black&White4 CTS, short for coffee, tea, and steam, can be used in environments where quality combined with high performance, consistency, and innovation is required.

Unveiled at Host Milano 2023, the machine is designed for medium to high daily demand of up to 500 cups.

See page 32.

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The M40 is the latest traditional coffee machine under the La Cimbali brand, capable of producing three to five kilograms of coffee and up to 240 espresso shots per group head per day.

This machine represents the launch of a new aesthetic under the La Cimbali brand and is paving the way for a new era of traditional machines.

See page 36.

Designed this year, Syntegon’s Package Maker PKD coffee packaging machine can pack 130 bags per minute. Its dosing system includes a weight measurement system and feedback control, which provides a double-stamp system to ensure the right amount of coffee goes into each bag.

See page 38.

The Pilot 2020 software system from Probat allows users to control any number of aspects in the coffee roasting process from the comfort and security of a computer. The development of the Pilot 2020 program began in 2018, when Probat visited customers to see how they used previous versions of the company’s software technology. To date, the Pilot 2020 system has been installed in more than 80 Probat machines.

See page 40.

Franke Coffee Systems’ new PrecisionFoam technology in its Vario machine, presented at Host Milano, uses accurate flowmeters to dispense the correct pre-programmed quantity of milk mixed with the correct amount of air.

See page 42.

World Barista Champion Boram Um has joined the Eversys team as an official ambassador. The barista, coffee shop owner, and producer was drawn to how Eversys’ advanced technology and automation is improving coffee quality, and will work with the Swiss manufacturer to help embrace the human connection through its range of super traditional machines.

See page 44.

The 2023 World Barista Champion Boram Um.

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German machine manufacturer WMF is helping high-volume businesses produce consistent output with its new 1500 F automatic coffee machine. The 1500 F is able to fully produce filtered coffee in seven seconds, thanks to the integrated four-litre storage urn that can help produce up to 220 cups of coffee per day.

See page 46.

As technological trends changed over the years and awareness of the internet increased, Schaerer developed a digital strategy in 2016, and established its Coffee Link Portal in 2018. This portal digitally optimises coffee businesses with new business models, and helps improve the end customer experience of the machine.

See page 48.

Since 2003, Nespresso’s coffee masters have worked to create N°20, a high-quality Arabica coffee plant in response to increased consumer demand for rare and highquality varieties.

See page 58.

16,000 The number of baristas Cimbali Group’s coffee learning centre Mumac Academy has trained.

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WMF_AZ_Co

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COVER STORY Löfbergs

Kathrine Löfberg believes digitalisation can play a key role in coffee connection between producers and consumers.

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Connection and

CHAIR OF THE LÖFBERGS BOARD AND COFFEE&CLIMATE INITIATIVE , K ATHRINE LÖFBERG, ON LONG-TER M RESPONSIBILITY, AND HOW A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS HAS EVOLVED INTO ONE OF THE NORDIC’S LARGEST, AND OLDEST, COFFEE ROASTING ENTERPRISES.

“WE WANT TO CONNECT AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE TO SCALE THE WORK WE DO.” Kathrine Löfberg

Chair of the Board, Löfbergs

Images: Fredrik Karlsson

By Sarah Baker

here’s one commonality Swedish roaster Löfbergs has shared for the past 117 years with the coffee producers it represents: both operate family-owned businesses and have an entrenched value for human connection.

One is the voice for the other, and for fourth-generation family member, Kathrine Löfberg, that voice is clear and committed.

“I want to establish a community around coffee in the bigger sense of the word, and see the end consumer contribute to [the] fairness of coffee farmers,” Löfberg tells Global Coffee Report.

“I think, and I hope, we will begin to see increased concern and interest from consumers in getting closer to coffee farmers, and knowing the people behind the product, how the coffee is grown, and how they can help take care of the environment and choose coffee that’s traced in the best way.”

Löfbergs sources its coffee directly from origin countries, and is prepared for the European Union’s regulation to collect geolocation coordinates of the land it sources from. However, Löfberg says consumers may not be so interested in businesses that follow certain rules, but are interested in connection.

“I heard from the Swedish professor Hans Rosling many years ago that coffee is one of the products that links the world together, and it really does. We are so involved and connected to people in Central America, South America, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. A lot of people are dependent on coffee, and we have great potential to show much more about the work and people behind it,” she says.

Löfberg believes digitalisation will play a key role in this development, as will the Era of We platform Löfbergs developed in 2021. The end-to-end digital coffee marketplace and social networking service connects stakeholders across the coffee supply chain, allowing farmers to build their own brands, and set their own prices through direct connection to roasters and consumers.

To take transparency even further, Löfbergs was one of the five leading family-owned European coffee companies to form non-profit organisation International Coffee Partners (ICP) in 2001, to help achieve a fair and sustainable coffee sector in all producing countries.

“At that time, as it is [now], it’s very challenging for coffee farmers with [volatile] coffee prices. They have a lot of [obstacles] and can be quite lonely in their business if they’re not in a bigger organisation, like a cooperative,” Löfberg says.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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COVER STORY Löfbergs

Over the years, the ICP, now a group of eight businesses, has worked with organisations to improve coffee quality, productivity, and the selling of coffee. It has developed open and transparent methodologies that focus on livelihoods, including topics such as gender, youth, biodiversity, and more, reaching over 110,000 smallholder families in 13 countries since its establishment.

“We have a methodology that’s very open and transparent because I think we can inspire others,” Löfberg says. “We are competitors in this group, but when we come together, we leave business outside.

Since we have taken a long-term view on our concern for the coffee industry, and the people growing it, it’s been a good example of how much we can achieve when we work together in partnership rather than ourselves – which is true of number 17 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”

Löfberg was Chair of the ICP for seven years before taking the Chair position of the coffee&climate (c&c) project, an initiative under the ICP that invites other companies outside of the founding partners to join the sustainable plight.

“We want to connect as many people as possible to scale the work we do. At coffee&climate, we aim to help coffee farmers really adapt to climate change. We also work a bit with mitigation, but mostly on adaptation on the situation right now,” she says.

“It’s not about focusing on innovation so much, but spreading already known information that’s out there but hasn’t reached smallholder farmers. For both the ICP and c&c, the focus is on building resilience and strength for when farmers face even lower coffee prices, an adverse weather event or even a pandemic.”

Löfberg say this resilience was tested during COVID-19 with research finding that coffee farmers taking part in ICP projects came out better off as a result of having structures in place on how to handle challenges, along with organisation, preparation, and teamwork.

“They were much, much stronger to handle the situation,” she says. “If their coffee crops were to go down, for example, we would have worked with them on diversification so they could have still an income.”

FROM LITTLE THINGS, BIG THINGS GROW Kathrine Löfberg’s great grandfather Anders Löfberg founded the company with his two brothers John and Josef in 1906. It started as a small, local business venture selling and trading grocery goods from coffee to spices. It later became a distributor of Citroën cars before the brothers divided the company in 1927.

“My great grandfather [Anders] took the coffee business because it’s what he had been mostly engaged in. One brother took the car business, and the other took the remainder of the company, which was later sold, and the car dealership went down in the 1930s during the economic crisis,” Löfberg says.

“It was my great grandfather’s son who really helped make the company bigger. He increased the market in Sweden, invested a lot in the roastery production, and made a lot of marketing investments.

In the 1950s and 1960s Löfbergs became a well-known national brand. I think my great grandfather possibility envisaged that the brand would grow in Sweden, but not to the international scale it has. Fifty per cent of our sales are now outside of Sweden.”

Kathrine attests Löfbergs’ international growth to her father’s vision and management during the 1980s and 1990s. He worked hard on exporting and acquiring other businesses outside of Sweden in order to escalate growth.

The company expanded to the Baltics, with Estonia Löfberg’s first export market outside of the Nordic region.

“It was a time when Estonia has just declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. While many companies in the food and beverage market had entered the market with much lower quantity products for short-term profit, we envisaged a long-term prospect. We built a good market presence because people could trust that we delivered good quality from the beginning, and that’s stayed the same,” Löfberg says.

The company also expanded to the United Kingdom, which Löfberg says has become an interesting market with increased coffee consumption that’s evolved from instant-coffee to espresso-based beverages, and filter consumption. Growth in the UK retail market is also fuelled by Löfberg’s partnership with supermarket retailers Tesco and Waitrose.

“We still have potential to grow in existing markets and in Northern Europe. We also have some customers like IKEA who are taking us [as their roasting partner] all over the world,” Löfberg says.

To sustain the company’s growth with commercial partners and increased retail sales, Löfberg invested in a new drum roaster and roastery two years ago, designed specifically for whole bean production. This was the largest investment in the history of the company.

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MAKING HER OWN MARK The Löfberg family grew up in the village of Karlstad in the heart of Sweden, in proximity to its head office and roastery. Today, it is still responsible for more than 90 per cent of production output. Growing up, Löfberg would visit the factory, and recalls seeing bags of stacked coffee, and the aroma of roasting coffee wafting through the village streets.

“As a child, I knew there was lots of coffee around, but I didn’t think it was anything special.

I thought everyone had the same number of coffee machines in their family kitchen,” Löfberg says.

“I do recall being woken by my father at 7am on family vacations, where we would go sailing in Sweden, and he would still call the factory daily to check on coffee prices. There were no mobile phones, it was all through radio communication the ships used.”

Her father was company CEO for a long time, and would travel to origin often, bringing home different coffee products from his adventures.

Being close to the coffee farmers and those who produce Löfbergs’ product has always been a priority. Löfberg says travelling to origin was challenging in the early 1900s, but something her grandfather did a lot during the 50s and 60s, and her father continued.

It was Löfberg’s first trip to Brazil and the chance to meet coffee farmers, however, that would later become the catalyst to continuing the family linage in an industry she has been devoted to for more than 25 years. “[Working in the family business was always] in the back of my mind, not as something I should do or have to do later, but an option. We were brought up being urged to do other things. We even had set rules that if you came into the company as an owner, you should have a higher education, work in other places for at least five years, and apply to positions relevant to your background and experience,” she says.

Löfberg forged her own path in banking and IT during the 90s, working and studying overseas, until her father noticed her growing interest in the family company. Her first assignment at Löfbergs was a trip to Norway to set-up the company’s first venue abroad.

“I took the job and after a short while, I said to myself: ‘Why didn’t I do this earlier? It was so much fun, and a good opportunity to learn and see lots of different parts of the business,” Löfberg says.

“I formed a new level of respect for the enormity

Kathrine Löfberg pursued a career in banking and IT before joining the family legacy of coffee roasting.

of work my family had been doing for so long, and it made me reflect on what had made us so successful for many years. We talk about this quite a lot in the [Löfbergs] Group with my siblings.

We can learn from our history and have great respect for it, but we never want to be stuck there.

I think it’s very important for an older company and older brand to use our history as fuel, but to be looking ahead.”

Just as the next generation of coffee producers need to be inspired, Löfberg says maintaining the energy and fun at Löfbergs for the next succession of family members is also a consideration.

“We talk about trying to inspire the next generation to take over, and instilling the passion for our business, coffee, and people, in order to achieve future growth. It’s too early to say exactly how our children will [be involved] but hopefully they want to continue. We have an ambition to stay as a family business,” Löfberg says.

“Engagement is key. There’s more opportunities and options these days, so we have to be active about [the future] and getting them interested, which was the opposite to [my generation].”

A succession plan is already in place to 2050, but for now, Löfberg is inspired to lead the business as Chair of the Board, and keep being an active voice for the future of sustainable coffee production.

“That we are able to offer great tasting coffee is of course an important driving force. What also motivates me, is when you see results, whether it’s something you do with a co-worker in the roastery; or efforts from work within International Coffee Partners where coffee farmers are really coming out better off; with increased income, for example, so that they can invest in their livelihood,” Löfberg says.

“That’s when you know the effort has been worth it.” G C R NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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FEATURE WCR

A hole puncher is used to obtain a small amount of leaf tissue.

In the genes WORLD COFFEE RESEARCH EXPLAINS HOW ITS AR ABICA GENETIC FINGERPRINTING DATABASE WILL DR AMATICALLY REDUCE THE COST OF COFFEE VARIETY IDENTIFICATION AND GENETIC TR ACEABILITY. ike the Pinot Noir or Cabernet Sauvignon varieties of wine, Bourbon, Pacamara, or Geisha are not merely used as coffee varietal descriptions, they’re also employed as marketing terms.

To appreciate specific varieties within the Arabica species of coffee, World Coffee Research (WCR) has released an Arabica coffee genetic fingerprint database that will make variety authentication cheaper and simpler.

“Verification of coffee varieties is important to ensure quality control of plant material available to farmers worldwide. WCR is making the database openly accessible to the scientific community so that it can be used by public and private labs for variety verification,” says WCR Director of Strategy and Communications Hanna Neuschwander.

“This unique achievement brings new technology to coffee to dramatically reduce quality control costs to ensure the future of high-quality coffee.”

WCR Research Scientist in Plant Breeding and Genomics Dr. Santos Barrera says prior WCR studies have confirmed the need for such tools to better support quality control in seed lots and nurseries.

“We saw the need to develop a fingerprint database and created a reference point for the coffee industry.

If, for example, a supposedly disease-resistant variety turns out to be susceptible to debilitating infections, this can have devastating economic consequences for a farmer,” Barrera says.

Determining the genetic makeup of a plant — the specific variety, otherwise known as its genotype — is important at many steps along agricultural supply chains. This database of genetic fingerprints for

Arabica uses 45 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) molecular markers — tiny genetic variations dispersed through a plant’s DNA sequence — to create a unique genetic fingerprint for 23 of the most commonly recognised coffee varieties in commercial coffee production in Latin America.

“A SNP is basically a molecular tool to measure the genetic differences between individuals. Small variations in the patterns tell us who’s who,” says Neuschwander.

Neuschwander says SNP markers can be analysed quicker than other genetic markers.

“In order to build a variety verification database like this one, you need to test a lot of trees – not just one or two trees per type, but hundreds or thousands – in order to define which SNP patterns are associated with, for example, Bourbon versus Geisha versus Pacamara, and so on. You need to NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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FEATURE WCR

WCR is making the database openly accessible so that it can be used by public and private labs for variety verification.

find which pattern identifies that particular variety and distinguishes it from another. That is what the database does,” she says.

“If a research lab has the technology to take a DNA sample from a coffee plant and ‘read’ the SNPs from that sample, they could use the database to match the SNP to the specific coffee varietal, determining its genotype.”

Neuschwander says one of the database’s most important applications is the development of low-cost variety authentication to support coffee’s evolving seed sector.

“Similar tools are widely used in other crops by seed producers, seed traders and food manufacturers but until now, these tools have been too expensive or impractical to use for coffee on a wide scale,” Neuschwander says.

Barrera says that in coffee, the predominant way that varieties are identified currently is through morphological identification.

“Morphological authentication involves identifying the structure and form of the plant”—in other words, visual inspection. “This approach, however, is far less accurate than genetic identification,” he says.

“There are other types of molecular markers, such as simple sequence repeat (SSR) or microsatellites markers, that can be used for genetic identification. These are very effective for diversity analysis but very expensive, priced at around US$130 per sample. The SNP markers are more exact for authentication, and much more affordable priced at about US$10 per sample.”

To process the sample of a coffee variety, Neuschwander says, involves using a hole puncher to obtain 16

GCR | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

a small amount of leaf tissue, which is sent to a lab for analysis. From there, the tissue is ground, and placed in a machine that isolates the DNA. “Let’s say a coffee seed lot owner wants to check the genetic purity of their trees to ensure they are the correct variety. They collect small pieces of the leaves from trees they want to authenticate and send them to a genotyping lab. DNA is extracted from the leaf samples, and the SNP profile is read.

The sample’s SNP fingerprint is then compared against the known SNP fingerprint for the variety in question. When the fingerprints match, the variety can be confirmed,” she says.

“It’s pretty common to use SNPs in other plant groups as it’s a “faster, cheaper, and better” method.

Now that this database is available to the coffee sector, it’s a gamechanger that allows for more precise and cost-effective genetic traceability.”

WCR’s breeding team developed the database, led by WCR Research Scientists in Plant Breeding and Genomics Drs. Jorge Berny and Barrera. The database builds on a SNP marker panel developed

by Research Geneticist Dr. Dapeng Zhang from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service.

“The reference database was validated and refined by WCR using over 30,000 leaf samples from trees in six countries including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Peru between 2021 and 2023,” says Barrera.

Multiple institutions facilitated access to leaf samples used to create and validate the database, including The Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, Instituto del Cafe de Costa Rica, Honduran Institute of Coffee, and Guatemalan National Coffee Association. The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Maximising Opportunities in Coffee and Cacao in the Americas (MOCCA) program funded the work.

“The idea is that any lab can use the database to identify varieties without the need for a geneticist or breeder to analyse the data. If you don’t have the capacity to build out your own genotyping lab and fund the lab equipment, they can simply send samples to commercial labs in the US or Europe,” Barrera says.

WCR plans to add fingerprints for additional varieties in the coming months and years.

To ensure the coffee community has immediate access to this service, WCR worked with Swedenbased Intertek AgriTech to validate and refine the database and technical protocols. Intertech Agritech has since launched high-volume lab testing service, targeted mostly to seed lots,

nurseries, and coffee research programs. They typically require a minimum of 376 samples.

Intertek AgriTech is an ISO-certified quality assurance laboratory that provides lab services to the global agricultural sector.

“Now that WCR is making the database publicly available it may also be used by other providers to develop their own DNA testing services,” says Neuschwander.

“If you’re a nursery and you want to verify that you are selling the variety you think you are, you need to be able to send your samples somewhere and verify them. This database makes those services possible and more affordable, not only for a big private seed company but for a national coffee research institute that might want to test the seed lots of their own national variety.”

Neuschwander says this public reference panel of SNP-based genetic markers serves as a crucial tool and leap forward for the coffee industry to authenticate varieties, reducing risk, and enhance value for farmers. She says an example of the impact such a tool can have on coffee production at scale, can be found in El Salvador.

Coffee leaf samples are collected for genetic analysis.

“El Salvador’s government is undertaking a national renovation plan, with the goal of producing and distributing more than 150 million plants over the next decade as part of its commitment to revitalise the country’s coffee sector. These plants are hoped to generate 1.8 to 2 million bags of exportable green coffee, stimulating the country’s economy, and supporting the livelihoods of producers nationwide,” says Neuschwander.

“This SNP panel is being used to validate the authenticity of the trees it plans to distribute to farmers, in order to ensure they are the high-performing varieties selected to meet the country’s ambitious production goals. WCR is excited to be a partner in this work to sustain supplies of high-quality beans from El Salvador.” G C R

FEATURE Digital Coffee Future

Money talk DIGITAL COFFEE FUTURE EXPLORES HOW COFFEE PRICE DYNAMICS HAVE AN IMPACT NOT ONLY ON COFFEE STAKEHOLDERS BUT ON THE INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE . he conversation about coffee prices in the global coffee industry is as common as small talk about the weather, but knowledge hub Digital Coffee Future (DCF) says it rarely includes discussion on how – and if – technology can play a role in mitigating the challenges that arise from coffee pricing instability and unsustainability.

To address why, DCF hosted the Coffee Prices and Technology Summit: Trends, Margins and Pay Gap from 25 to 26 October. The online event – sponsored by M-Cultivo, Algrano, Fairtrade International, the International Trade Center and German Society for International Cooperation – brought together speakers from around the globe and every node of the coffee value stream.

“Weather events, yield projections, global inflation, and interest rates are only some of the factors exacerbating market price fluctuations. Economic value is also distributed unevenly among actors, contributing to increased disparities and concerns for the sustainability of coffee production,” says DCF Founder and CEO Elisa Criscione.

“Even if the topic of price has been highly discussed in the past few years in the industry, the conversation on whether technology can play a role in tackling coffee price challenges is still largely unexplored.”

In the virtual event, panellists and participants highlighted topics that impact the industry and explored with a critical eye the role that digital tools can play in overcoming price-related challenges.

Global organisation Fairtrade International shares a mission which is founded upon producer empowerment and poverty alleviation. Senior Coffee Advisor at Fairtrade International, Monika Firl, believes digital technologies can support real-time reporting while fulfilling the growing demands by industry actors and coffee consumers for greater traceability and transparency about where coffee comes from, and how it was traded.

“This combined data provides a global portrait of coffee trading practices, and it can serve as a powerful leverage for keeping everyone honest in regard to the actual pricing and production practices of coffee producer organisations. The net result of this is a clearer illustration of what we should understand as a fair price for the hard work of sustainable coffee production,” she says.

Fairtrade International says this kind of open forum allows coffee stakeholders to share

“WHETHER TECHNOLOGY CAN PLAY A ROLE IN TACKLING COFFEE PRICE CHALLENGES IS STILL LARGELY UNEXPLORED.” The Summit was hosted virtually on a professional platform combining various panels, lectures, and networking opportunities.

Elisa Criscione

DCF Founder and CEO NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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FEATURE Digital Coffee Future

knowledge and learn from other’s perspectives. Firl says it’s an opportunity to level the playing field on access to market intelligence, and as a prerequisite for a sustainable future in coffee.

“Any initiative that gives farmers access to specific insights on how to track, trace and make better price negotiating decisions based on the true value of their coffee, is of enormous importance given current market conditions,” Firl says.

“We are always eager to learn about real-life practices that can help the industry see and acknowledge the glaring gaps in resource distribution across the value chain and to envision a more equitable coffee future for all.”

Firl is optimistic that the industry will continue to undergo significant and promising changes.

“Many influential actors are making important commitments towards sustainable sourcing and in articulating their concerns for coffee-farmer livelihoods,” she says.

“But anyone with real experience in the field knows that selected project work can never replace the empowering impact of industry pricing that covers a farmer’s cost of sustainable production. We hope that events such as this can provide a more honest discussion about the fundamental role that fair pricing plays in both alleviating poverty in coffee-producing regions, and in limiting supply-risk for the market at large.”

Head of Content at green coffee marketplace Algrano, Luiza Pereira Furquim, says the forum offered a lot of value on how coffee producers can discover tools to use day-to-day and improve their prices, manage risk, and monitor quality through technology.

“Price transparency has been core to Algrano’s model from day one. We believe that coffee professionals need a better understanding of pricing mechanisms and trends so that we, as an industry, can create innovative solutions for our historical challenges,” says Furquim.

“It’s also impossible to talk about price without touching on power dynamics. This event offered an opportunity to generate more awareness about this topic, which Algrano has always been championing for.”

According to Furquim, value-adding strategies in the coffee value chain have limited success due to power imbalances between buyers and sellers. He says for Algrano, enabling producers to price their own coffees is a critical part of shifting power dynamics.

“An e-commerce set-up where offers are managed by producers is an important part of the solution to this problem. It also facilitates the dissemination of offers among a wider pool of potential buyers.

Having a diverse pool of buyers helps producers dilute risk and offers them the opportunity to develop trading relationships on equal footing,” says Furquim.

“The beauty of technology is that it takes the discussion about coffee pricing from an intellectual arena to

the real world. Companies are developing features to support producers in real day-to-day tasks and testing the efficacy of different solutions.”

Sarah Charles, Communications Officer for the International Trade Centre (ITC)’s sustainable agribusiness initiative, Alliances for Action, and co-author of its Coffee Guide (4th Edition) says the Summit builds on its efforts to support smallholder farmer livelihoods through market access and digitalisation.

“ITC is the only multilateral UN agency dedicated to supporting the competitiveness and internationalisation of micro, small- and mediumsized enterprises,” says Charles.

She says digital technology can bolster the competitiveness of coffee actors upstream of the value chain, and enhances transparency, traceability, and trust across the sector.

“It opens up new funding opportunities, such as impact investment, which seeks social or environmental gains as well as profits,” Charles says.

“Technology also presents an opportunity to use information to build a fairer industry in terms of price-taking and price-making. We can leverage technology to collect and analyse data to achieve a more equitable and rewarding business environment for coffee producers.”

Charles adds that events like the Summit are a great opportunity to get the attention of policymakers, donors, investors, and industry stakeholders on the intersection between coffee

Sarah Charles is the Communications Officer for the International Trade Centre.

Luiza Pereira Furquim is Head of Content at Algrano.

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David Paparelli is the Founder and CEO of M-Cultivo.

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prices and technology, and associated risks and opportunities.

“We hope that it provides a platform for not only important conversations, but also concrete action,” she says.

M-Cultivo Founder and CEO David Paparelli says the ethos of the platform provider is built on the foundation that technology can be used for a more dynamic flow of price information.

“Our mission is to help small-to-medium-sized specialty coffee producers grow their businesses, and we do this by providing access to technology, financing, and new markets. I think increasing the flow and visibility of pricing data enhances trust across stakeholders and therefore helps tackle coffee price challenges,” says Paparelli.

“If price related data is out in the open, it tends to encourage conversations like those had at the Digital Coffee Future event around what is equitable distribution of price and value across the supply chain.”

Paparelli says M-Cultivo’s valuable insights come from on-the-ground sources who see the most pressing industry issues on a daily basis.

Elisa Criscione is the Founder and CEO of Digital Coffee Future.

Monika Firl is the Senior Coffee Advisor at Fairtrade International.

“It’s important to remember that technology is a tool, not the answer to all problems. If we aren’t involved in events like this (DCF Summit), we’re forfeiting the chance to discover real solutions to these problems, which are generally instituted by the people who participate as stakeholders in the supply chain. Without them, nothing will happen. We think it’s important to engage with the community to find these solutions together,” Paparelli says. G C R

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09/08/2023 10:23:21

FEATURE AI

The future is now

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MAY BE A TECHNICAL BUZZWORD BUT IT’S ALREADY MAKING ITS MARK ON THE INTERNATIONAL COFFEE INDUSTRY. GCR EXPLORES HOW IT’S HELPING BUSINESSES SAVE TIME AND MONEY, AND WHY IT’S NOT NECESSARILY SOMETHING TO FEAR. y now, a plethora of articles have been written about artificial intelligence, or AI for short.

In fact, some of those articles have been written by AI – this is not one of them. It’s been hypothesised as a solution to businesses as well as a danger, with theories ranging anywhere in between.

But what exactly is AI? And does it relate to the coffee industry?

Jim Keller, President of the Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and University of Missouri Curators Distinguished Professor Emeritus says AI is simply the technology that enables a computer to behave or respond much like a human would do, mostly in decision-making processes.

“So far, there has never been an AI program that has been demonstrated to actually think,” Keller says. “They are ingeniously programmed systems that produce output.”

Keller says a wide range of computational operations fall under the definition of ‘artificial intelligence’, but distinguishing larger AI operations to smaller ones can help people better understand the kind of technology they are dealing with.

“Some people get carried away with what the definition of AI is, but in my opinion, I’m willing to call a lot of technology AI because it serves as an umbrella term,” he says.

He points to popular AI services such as ChatGPT and DALL-E as the unofficial faces of AI. ChatGPT

uses AI to generate written text based off humanfed prompts, and DALL-E does the same for photographs, which Keller says both often distract from the purpose of the technology.

“The real value [of AI] is in assisting people,” Keller says. “AI programs need to be trained to do a specific job.”

Dr Sean Holden, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom shares the same idea that the definition of AI technology is far from the general public’s interpretation. He says AI has been in use longer than people may think.

“The idea that AI has somehow just come into practise is nonsense,” Holden says. “People have been deploying AI concepts for 30 years.”

He points to the development of driverless cars NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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FEATURE AI

The Eagle One coffee machine from Simonelli Group includes the company’s VIS AI technology.

in the 1980s as an example of older AI. He says while this technology was far from applicable for daily use, it showed a willingness to automate activities through machinery at an early stage.

Holden describes AI as an “amplifier of intent” where tasks are completed just as the technology in a specific instance was intended to do.

He says AI has certainly made strides in recent years, however he cautions that much of the technology is still highly imperfect.

“There’s been a big step forward in certain capabilities [of AI] and now there’s a rush to monetise it,” he says.

“One problem is that [AI solutions] will be deployed nonetheless because it has the opportunity to save a lot of money.”

Holden adds that much of the discourse around AI comes from the developers trying to sell it, and that businesses should rely on their own research to determine if it works for them.

“The current hype is tiresome but predictable,” he says. “People have jumped to the idea that they can get rid of their entire sales team, and they’re already finding that it’s not as easy as they had hoped.”

As for the agriculture sphere, replacing humans in farming practices, for example, appears a difficult goal to reach.

“The chances to deploy AI in agriculture is not new,” Holden says. “You’re trying to harvest materials that can be damaged, and doing this with robotics is tricky because it’s difficult to make them recognise what exactly they are picking up.”

Holden believes this won’t stop AI innovation from expanding in the future, as developers will look to accomplish the lofty expectations many people have of AI. “There’s no real way you can stop humanity from pursuing that goal,” he says. “Someone’s going to do it.”

Simonelli Group is one of many companies in the coffee machine manufacturing market to begin incorporating AI into operations through its Virtual Intelligent Scale (VIS).

The VIS, which is a component of the company’s Eagle One coffee machine, ensures the perfect quantity of coffee is brewed into a cup, depending on the pre-set recipe.

“We started this development with the University of Camerino’s department of mathematics [in Italy],” says Head of Research and Development of the Technical Department of Simonelli Group, Claudio Cingolani.

The barista only needs to set the desired coffee quantity in grams on the Eagle One machine’s recipe menu.

“Our system is completely automatic and can detect using AI when the flow is coming out of the machine, while catching the right quantity,” says Cingolani.

He says customer feedback for the VIS technology has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Baristas were really surprised by the system, and we were told it was very helpful once the machine was set up,” he says.

According to Cingolani, the VIS is one of the first instances of AI being used in the coffee machine market, which has contributed to the steady growth in popularity of similar products.

“AI is becoming something that we’re using every day. We’re starting to use it more and more,” he says.

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“The goal of Simonelli is to simplify the workflow of the barista, so that they can use the machine to offer a good product, as well as make the customer happy.”

Outside of the coffee-making process, AI can assist in many stages of a business’ daily operations.

Finlays, a B2B supplier of tea and coffee solutions to beverage brands, is using a new AI software from global market intelligence agency Mintel.

The software, called FlavourScape AI, gives users an instant overview of the flavours used in a market or category, allowing them to quickly assess f lavour trends growth from around the world.

“We use AI to help look at exciting flavours, popular flavours, and flavours that are emerging in the tea and coffee markets,” says Finlays Group Insights Manager Sian Edwards.

The FlavourScape AI technology harvests data from around the world, looking at new coffee and tea releases, and compiles information in an instant that would otherwise take a research team hours to compile.

“The final result is a maturity table with flavour options that gives us a selection to choose from,” Edwards says. “The AI helps understand the data and translates it into concepts that we can understand to figure out what could work.”

“The Mintel system has [access to] product launches from the 1990s, so it can track trends from years back.”

Edwards adds that this technology has been especially helpful in assisting businesses with new ideas that human-led research may not be able to detect.

“Consumers are interested in trying new

Dr Sean Holden is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Cambridge University.

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products, especially out of curiosity,” she says.

“We can already see what’s popular, but that doesn’t stimulate as much interest.”

While Finlays has assisted businesses with consulting services in the coffee and tea sector for years, FlavourScape AI has taken operations

Jim Keller is President of the Computational Intelligence Society within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers at the University of Missouri.

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to a whole new level, saving Finlays hours in research time, and offering more advanced results.

“We’ve given flavour recommendations forever, but having this tool makes decisions even clearer thanks to how data driven it is,” Edwards says.

“Having the AI behind it gives it added weight considering it’s pulling from more data than humans ever could.

“It’s given us a lot of ideas we wouldn’t have previously had.”

The FlavourScape AI technology from Mintel is the kind of AI that IEEE’s Jim Keller says is being positively used today by different markets, and is largely different to the ‘robot dominating’ ideology some unassuming general public have.

Keller says innovation of pre-existing AI concepts is still developing, allowing more help to be offered to businesses.

“We’re going to see more collaborative AI systems moving forward that know their place in a team,” he says. “This sort of technology will become a team member, instead of something that just spits out an answer.”

For AI, this type of innovation can lead to any number of possibilities, including a new level of intelligence among machinery.

“There’s a big controversy right now about whether or not we’ll be able to get artificial general intelligence, which is where machines can respond to new environments without having been trained to them prior,” he says.

In the meantime, Keller says AI can be used to help businesses save time and money by completing smaller tasks such as sample testing and taking measurements. It’s future use and place in the global coffee market however, is one to watch.

“There are some people who believe we’re really close to [robot reliance], but most in the AI business think it’s still very far away,” he says. G C R

25.09.23 17:02

INDUSTRY PROFILE Brambati

An extended family BR AMBATI ON WHY MAINTAINING CLOSE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS AND SHARING ITS STORY ON EVOLUTION AND VALUES ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT AS ITS COMMITMENT TO NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.

hen roaster manufacturer Brambati Spa first exhibited at the esteemed Host Milano expedition in the 1980s, just 60 kilometres from its Codevilla factory in Lombardy, Italy, owners Fabrizio and Andrea Brambati’s parents were present. It was a special occasion to see the continuation of the business their grandfather, Francesco Brambati, had founded in 1945, and the beginning of a future linage that would see the Brambati name become synonymous with roasters across the world.

“It is important to pass on the history of the company, the values passed down,” says Brambati President Fabrizio Brambati.

“That’s why this year at Host Milan, a new institutional video was previewed, which, stepping out of the corporate canons, aimed to tell the story and the importance of family values that are handed down from generation to generation, creating an emotional tale that explains the growth of Brambati in its more than 75 years of history, celebrating innovation, integration, and tradition.”

A significant part of Brambati’s innovation was in 2018 when it initiated a project for a testing laboratory, leading to the birth of the Advanced Food Lab (AFL).

“Thanks to this facility, it is possible to carry out product testing while offering a service to users and developers of new technologies. Thus, a rigorous scientific method for testing food processes was born,” Brambati says.

“The Advanced Food Lab is equipped with a pilot plant and certified energy consumption measurement systems that make it possible to objectively evaluate energy consumption and emissions of products, and thus develop and choose the most suitable solutions for each user. It represents a unique facility, among the first in Europe, where research and development is done on food products, in the processes of processing, drying, roasting, grinding etc, with innovation of technological solutions, reduction in energy consumption, and environmental impact.”

With this consideration top of mind for consumers, Brambati says the company remains devoted to finding solutions with research on new plant materials and development of industrial automation, artificial intelligence data analysis, and cybersecurity applied.

He says maintaining close ties with customers from sales to plant testing and continuing a high level of responsiveness and service is also a critical part of the company’s continuous investment in product development.

“Customer feedback is crucial. Listening to the customer and paying attention to the customer’s needs and planning are one of the underlying strategic elements of Brambati’s approaches in product 26

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Brambati’s new KL250 grinder is one of the company’s smallest specialty grinders for small production capacity with the same advanced technology.

evolution, and continuous improvement of its service level,” he says.

“Brambati believes that maintaining a constant and solid relationship based on transparency, trust and dialogue, with all its stakeholders, both inside and outside the company, is very important.”

He adds that relationships based on continuous dialogue and shared active involvement is the expression of the company’s responsibility towards the community it interacts with, and leads to continuous improvement for the whole supply chain.

“All players are fundamental for the goal of making the agri-food supply chain fully sustainable: people, the environment and the company coexist and collaborate to create higher value for society at large,” he says.

This display of evolution and decision making was evident at Host Milan in October when Brambati released its Specialty Grinder range for capsule and gourmet coffee grinding.

These new grinders can produce the desired granulometry with a small amount of fine particles necessary for capsule coffee production, while also giving delivering bulk density in ground coffee.

One such grinder in the range is the new KL250, which Brambati says is “unique” for its scale, as one of the company’s smallest specialty grinders for small production capacity, yet still

retains all the details and features of its classic cylinder grinders.

“Our Specialty Grinders are the ideal solution for small producers and for large producers installing one specialty grinder for each single confectionary line,” Brambati says.

These grinders are set to become popular new additions to the Brambati suite, in addition its range of roasters and grinders. Brambati says their development is timely and continuous to ensure its machines are increasingly performance driven, and can meet the most demanding specifications in terms of efficiency and sustainability.

“Technological innovations and technical improvements have made it possible in the period between 2018 to 2021 to reduce the energy consumption of coffee grinding grinders by 22 per cent,” Brambati says.

He adds that innovations in software and preparation of machines/systems according to 4.0 logic are also an exciting next step. This

technological concept monitors all vital parameters and conditions of Brambati’s machinery, connecting with Internet of Things, and can be integrate with Artificial Intelligence systems.

Brambati now has a worldwide presence in sales and installed roasting plants, with about 70 per cent of its sales accounted in foreign markets. In 2014, Brambati opened an Asia Pacific office in Australia, and most recently an office in the United States.

Beyond its international office markets, Brambati says Host Milano remains the most valuable Hospitality Restaurant and Catering exhibition in the world, and this year, provided the chance to connect with its audience on a new level, all under the one roof.

“With each edition [at Host Milano], the investment in terms of exhibition space, machinery and resources has increased to the current square footage of 210 square meters and the presence of the entire Italian and foreign sales team, and the latest in technology and research and development,” he says.

“Being able to present in detail the technology, performances and capabilities of our machinery creates a different relationship because the confrontation becomes direct. Knowing in person who you will be dealing with is an added value.”

The biggest take-out for the family-owned company in exhibiting in the 43rd edition of this year’s show, was having new customers and existing ones feel part of Brambati’s extended family.

“To better represent what the customer means to Brambati spa, we quote Mahatma Gandi: ‘The customer is the most important visitor who can enter our premises. He does not depend on us; we depend on him. He does not interrupt our work because he is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider because he is part of our business,” says. G C R For more information, visit www.brambati.it/?locale=en

TECH PROFILE Tone

The future of brewing TONE DISCUSSES ITS LATEST BREWING AND EXTR ACTION TECHNOLOGY, ENERGY AND COFFEE SAVING POSSIBILITIES, AND THE SIMPLICITY OF ITS NEXT-GENER ATION EQUIPMENT. The Touch 04 is Tone’s latest coffee brewing device.

wiss coffee brewing equipment manufacturer Tone is passionate about embracing innovation while honouring the traditional shape of its brewing device. Jörg Krahl, Tone Managing Director, says this philosophy was at the forefront when developing several new products for the global market.

“Tone was established to revolutionise temperature and flow control precision and improve energy saving in coffee brewing equipment. The new Tone Touch 04 is a direct representation of this business ethos,” says Krahl.

“By exploring engineering solutions beyond those typically employed within the coffee industry, Tone has created an energy-efficient, boilerless brewer that grants unparalleled precision in crafting the perfect cup of coffee or tea.”

Tone debuted the Touch 04 boilerless brewer at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Portland, the United States, from 21 to 23 April. The Touch 03 was originally designed for pour over brewing and small quantities of coffee of up to 1.5 litres, whereas the Touch 04 offers brewing capabilities from one up to four litres.

Available from December 2023, the Touch 04 can brew coffee within seconds of pressing a button with a powerful heating element devoted to heating water on demand with 99 per cent temperature stability.

By not continuously heating an idle boiler throughout the day, the Touch 04 consumes a fraction of the energy of some traditional tank-oriented brewers.

“The Tone Touch 04 transcends conventional brewing machines by enabling baristas to tap into the full potential of their coffee and tea beverages while using 10 times less energy than a traditional brewer.

The Touch 4 uses ‘energy on demand’ and has four LEDs that consume next to no energy,” Krahl says.

“The Touch 04 simplifies a lot of steps in the brewing workflow, which allows users to allocate time elsewhere in the business. This innovative product also empowers baristas to effortlessly fine-tune recipes and cater to the diverse preferences of customers.”

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Baristas can program different brewing recipes using the Tone Beverage Manager software and adjust flow rates, pulse patterns and temperatures at all stages of brewing. Tone’s logarithmic software can also scale recipes up or down, automatically depending on volume.

“This intelligent brewing system is a key part of the programmability offered in the Tone Beverage Manager software,” says Krahl.

The new machine includes a larger showerhead that evenly saturates coffee grounds using optimal water flow for maximum flavour, and two internal heating elements compared to the single heater inside the Touch 03.

“Our research and development team reached out to [complete bathroom solutions brand] Grohe and learned how they designed showerheads for bathrooms. They took that knowledge and adapted it to our new boilerless brewing and extraction technology,” says Krahl.

“It took us about 25 prototypes to create the perfect showerhead and get the highest extraction possible.”

The Touch 04 brew basket enables baristas to experiment with various levels of brew bed agitation.

The Touch 04 has four recipe buttons that can each be programmed to execute two functions.

For example, one can program four coffee recipes, and four water profiles can dispense set quantities when the brew basket is removed. By optimising water reach and penetration of the coffee bed, the Tone Touch 04 can achieve high extraction and replicate recipes.

Users can program up to four water profiles using the bypass functionality. With an integrated spout outside of the showerhead, coffee shops can brew coffee concentrates and dilute to have more liquid or by using less coffee or brew large amounts of tea. A patented bypass pathway is built into the drawer that holds one of the Touch 04’s two filter basket inserts for different batch sizes.

“The bypass allows hot water to flow directly into the urn without passing through the coffee,” says Krahl.

The Touch 04 has a deep, narrow brew basket, enabling baristas to experiment with various levels of brew bed agitation from the initial bloom to the final pour.

“The brew basket carrier is dishwasher safe and can be easily removed. Condensation backflow is directed into the brew basket and the basket detection and locking system ensure safety and security during the brewing process,” Krahl says.

“We have received nothing but positive feedback about the Tone Touch 04. We already have preorders from three huge global coffee chains.”

The Touch 04’s showerhead was inspired by bathroom solutions brand Grohe.

Tone believes the future of the global coffee industry is boilerless equipment due to its energy-saving abilities. Considered “the Tesla of the coffee community” according to Krahl, Tone added to its range and revealed the Tone Touch Espresso, a boilerless commercial two-group espresso machine, at Host Milano in October in Italy.

“Not only can this machine produce espresso shots without a boiler, but it can also create a powerful steam for frothing milk,” Krahl says.

Krahl says the Touch Espresso or ‘Touch E’ as it is internally referred to, represents the heritage of Tone, resembling as “a massive mountain with green trees on it”.

“The materials we’re using are simplistic and sustainable, mirroring the current market demands. It will have a unibody casing just like the Touch 03 and 04,” he says.

The Touch Espresso also utilises a modular maintenance concept like its predecessors to simplify service and upkeep.

“All electronical and mechanical parts are built in a modular way. If a service is needed, everything can be accessed and exchanged in an easy and simple way.,” Krahl says.

“It’s also an ideal height so the barista can still converse with the customer without the machine getting in the way. This was an important element for us to incorporate into the machine, as a friendly face always brings repeat customer service.”

The new boilerless espresso machine is also capable of producing a cold espresso shot with a crema on top and fully developed flavours like a hot espresso shot.

“It tastes amazing, and you can use this function in so many different variations. We expect this to be very popular among consumers as there is nothing else like it on the market,” Krahl says.

The Touch Espresso will be available worldwide in 2024.

“The direction of Tone is focusing on boilerless,” says Krahl. “The future is boilerless — that’s the next level.” G C R For more information, visit tone-swiss.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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TECH PROFILE Lavazza

The Lavazza Foundation trains coffee farmers to grow a more homogeneous, higher quality crop.

Cultivating Cuban ITALIAN ROASTER LAVAZZA LAU NCHES THE LA RESERVA DE ¡TIERR A! CUBA BLEND, A CONTEMPOR ARY STORY OF A COFFEE THAT CARES FOR FAR MERS, CONSUMERS, AND THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT. ince its foundation in 1895, Italian coffee company Lavazza has aimed to create unique blends by combining body, aroma, and taste. The brand has carried this ambition into 2023 by unveiling a new product for barista professionals and the hospitality industry.

Called La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba, this new blend debuted in Italy in March, and is currently launching globally featuring beans from the Cuban regions of Granma and Santiago de Cuba.

“La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is a part of La Reserva de ¡Tierra! collection, in which every blend contains coffees from communities involved in social responsibility projects, promoted, and managed by the Lavazza Foundation. Rainforest Alliance and/or organic certified coffees are selected, blended, and gently roasted to offer a unique sustainable taste experience of coffee origins,” says Lavazza Brand Away from Home Director Michele Cannone.

Since 2004, the Lavazza Foundation has promoted and financed international sustainability projects in the countries where coffee is cultivated. The Lavazza Foundation currently supports 33 projects in 20 countries 30

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reaching more than 180,000 beneficiaries.

“The Lavazza Foundation aims to foster a long-term partnership to support organic Cuban coffee development while taking care of the local environment,” Cannone says.

By involving 170 farmers in the areas of Santiago and Granma, Lavazza Foundation works to improve the quality of Cuban coffee with five key deliverables, including forest preservation, agricultural practices improvement, coffee quality improvement, women and youth empowerment, and equity and short supply chain.

Cannone says the polyculture techniques used

in this area promote biodiversity, guarantee the maintenance of the structural complexity of the territory, provide a stable source of sustenance and income for locals, and guarantee the ideal shade system for coffee plants.

“We train coffee farmers to cultivate a more homogeneous, higher quality crop and select the best cherries during the picking process, done entirely by hand,” says Cannone.

He adds that the quality of Cuban coffee is the result of the joint effort of farmers, agronomists, the Lavazza Foundation, and Lavazza research and development.

“Selecting and sorting different types of coffee can improve their overall value and in-cup quality.

This activity is carried out using coffee sieves to separate bean sizes and a sorting machine to remove major defects. The Lavazza Foundation has created new employment opportunities by implementing a final manual sorting system, carried out and managed by an all-female team of 95 women.

Thanks to this final step, it is now possible to sort the coffee by quality and eliminate the defects that could not be mechanically identified,” Cannone says.

The Lavazza Foundation is also working with Cuban institutions to simplify the coffee supply

La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is a premium blend of 65 per cent washed Arabica, 25 per cent washed Robusta, and 10 per cent fermented Robusta.

La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is a completely traceable blend thanks to blockchain technology.

chain by scaling down the number of intermediaries, and placing a greater focus on the roles that add real value to the product.

“We are supporting the future introduction of a reward mechanism based on coffee quality, to improve the wellbeing of farmers and quality of the product. Our goal is to create a participatory social budget for coffee production which takes into account human index development parameters,” says Cannone.

The contemporary output of Lavazza’s environmental and social commitment is La Reserva de ¡Tierra!

Cuba, a premium blend made with coffee that is 100 per cent sourced from Cuban plantations involved in the Lavazza Foundation sustainability project.

“La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is a premium blend of 65 per cent washed Arabica combined with 25 per cent washed Robusta, and 10 per cent fermented Robusta. This creates a well-rounded flavour with a velvety body and a delicate sweetness that celebrates its Cuban heritage and boosts exotic flavours and notes in the cup,” says Cannone.

The controlled fermentation process, with selected yeasts, is used to enhance the flavour complexity of the blend, unlock exotic flavours, and make the final product sweeter and elegant in line with younger consumer preferences.

In order to improve the quality of the coffee and boost its economic appeal, Lavazza’s research and development experts worked closely with the Cuban communities through dedicated trainings to implement and improve the fermentation process of La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba. It follows a very strict approach, which involves constant monitoring of time and temperature to guarantee the right flavour development.

Cannone says the result is a balanced espresso featuring aromatic notes of almonds, spices, and chocolate with a winey aftertaste.

“Lavazza’s slow, gentle, roasting method applies appropriate roasting techniques, such as gentle drum roasting combined with air conveyed technology to enhance the taste profile of coffee origins. Each blend of La Reserva de ¡Tierra! is roasted with strict setting parameters and different roasting profiles in order to release the best aroma compounds,” Cannone says.

La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is completely traceable through integrated blockchain technology that also gives consumers access to comprehensive information about the supply chain and the product, from plantation to cup.

“To remain transparent, the consumer can trace the coffee journey and our sustainability commitment by scanning the QR code on the back on any La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba pack,” says Cannone.

“The ultimate aim of La Reserva de ¡Tierra! Cuba is to bring the journey from crop to cup to the consumer’s doorstep, while also helping the local population,” says Cannone. G C R For more information, visit www.lavazza.com/lareservadetierra NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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TECH PROFILE Thermoplan

The steam solution

The new Black&White4 CTS can meet a daily demand of 500 cups.

COFFEE MACHINE MANUFACTURER THER MOPLAN U NVEILS THE BLACK&WHITE4 CTS SUPER-AUTOMATIC ESPRESSO MACHINE WITH A BESPOKE STEAM WAND COMBINING PRECISION, PERFOR MANCE , AND POWER. t’s not every day Swiss coffee machine manufacturer Thermoplan launches a new fully automatic coffee machine. But when it does, it ensures the occasion is one of celebration for the hours of dedication its engineers and research and developers have endured to product a model that looks good, performs well, and delivers a solution and need for its customer base.

Thermoplan Head of Area Sales Management Martin Ulrich says the new Black&White4 CTS, short for coffee, tea, and steam, can be used in environments where quality combined with high performance, consistency, and innovation is required.

“These include restaurants, hotels, catering, bakeries, convenience stores and quick serve restaurants.

Thanks to the numerous configuration and equipment options, it meets every customer need. A true multi-talent,” says Ulrich.

Unveiled at Host Milano 2023, the machine is designed for medium to high daily demand of up to 500 cups.

“Fully automatic machines guarantee continuous in-cup quality, regardless of the barista’s skill level,” says Ulrich.

The Black&White4 CTS comes with a new patented multifunctional steam wand that offers three different functions, each providing a consistent foam that is compatible with alternative or dairy milk.

“The AutoSteam function is for conventional milk frothing in a pitcher, and AirSteam is for fully automatic milk frothing. The Purge function is for steam lance cleaning [which opens the valve and blows steam through it to purge the nozzle before it has a chance to harden]. The cleaning is thus guaranteed.

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to create perfect milk foam without the need for barista experience. With the CTS, Thermoplan introduces a forward-thinking steam solution to the market,” says Ulrich.

“The Black&White4 CTS is where coffee excellence meets innovative steam wand technology paired with top performance. It stands out with its clear design and high-quality materials.”

“Around 40 per cent of the Black&White4 CTS is made of high-quality stainless steel.

“Our stainless steel consists of more than 90 per cent recycled material, resulting in recycled content of over 35 per cent of the entire machine,” Ulrich says.

Thermoplan machines are assembled with 100 per cent renewable energy, producing more than 10 per cent electricity with its own photovoltaic system.

“The rest we get from hydroelectric power plants. To heat our buildings, we are connected

to a nearby district heating network, which is 100 per cent powered by wood chips. Through continuous improvements, we strive to use energy as efficiently as possible,” says Ulrich.

Depending on the customer’s needs, Thermoplan’s CTS machine is available with one or two grinders. Each bean hopper holds around 1.7 kilograms.

All Black&White4 configurations can also be equipped with both single and double spouts.

These can be automatic or manual.

Ulrich says the specially developed intelligent shot quality (ISQ) technology ensures the perfect taste of the coffee despite possible deviations, such as a decline in bean quality due to storage for too long.

“With ISQ technology, sensors continuously measure certain parameters and compare them with a previously defined reference product. Then the settings of the machine are automatically adjusted to match the values of the reference product,” he says.

“This means that you can always enjoy your coffee in the highest quality, regardless of the time of day.”

The patented multifunctional steam wand offers three different functions, each Caption providing a consistent foam.

All machine functions are combined in modules. Ulrich says this enables quick and easy replacement of machine parts which reduces downtimes to a minimum, a decisive advantage in the hectic everyday life of a coffee shop.

“Maintenance and service work on the Black&White4 CTS is carried out exclusively on the respective modules. Within a few minutes, a complete machine module can be replaced, leaving the housing untouched throughout. This means that every machine is back in operation in no time at all,” he says.

“To make our tried and tested modules even better, we are consistently working on further developing this system.”

The Black&White4 CTS is compatible with ThermoplanConnect, a digital solution that offers live monitoring, remote access, and device and platform security.

“ThermoplanConnect allows you to find out in real time about current product withdrawals and error messages from your machine. You can easily apply new drink recipes and software updates to individual coffee machines or an entire fleet, regardless of location or time. You can also inform your customers about current promotions with the help of customisable screensavers and thus realise additional sales,” says Ulrich.

“Sales peaks can be analysed, trends predicted, and seasonal offers evaluated. With just a few clicks, you can install software updates, make changes to recipes and prices, or switch individual promotions to the touchscreens. ThermoplanConnect offers a standard interface that enables connections to other cloud solutions or apps, allowing you to integrate your data into an enterprise resource planning system and automatically reorder outgoing coffee beans or milk when needed.”

Ulrich adds that two criteria are paramount in the cleaning and care of a fully automatic coffee machine: hygiene and safety.

“Thanks to well thought-out technology and an automatic cleaning system, all our fully automatic coffee machines can be cleaned easily and quickly. We supply specially produced tabs for cleaning, guaranteeing the exact dosage of cleaning agent,” he says.

“With the Black&White4 CTS, the cleaning intervals are pre-programmed, which simplifies the process and ensures beverage quality. The machine automatically recommends cleaning after 48 hours.

A complete cleaning process takes a maximum of 10 minutes.”

Despite its many technological functions, Ulrich’s favourite feature is the ease of creating and perfecting milk foam without necessarily needing barista experience. The design and simple handling are added benefits.

“I love the look and feel of the CTS. It’s very chic and modern while still maintaining Thermoplan’s classic machine design. We can also manufacture the side and rear panels in any colour, making it customisable to suit every customer,” he says.

According to Thermoplan, the enjoyment of producing high-quality fully automatic coffee machines and premium coffee is a privilege that can connect people and create special moments and, ultimately, jobs. Ulrich says Thermoplan is doing its part to ensure future generations enjoy these same privileges.

“Building on three pillars, we are respectful towards each other, optimise and reduce resources where appropriate, and improve our products for the benefit of our customers and the environment with the help of latest technologies. This way, we learn a lesson every day to keep our footprint on earth as small as possible,” he says.

Its headquarters may be in Weggis, Switzerland, however Ulrich says Thermoplan, together with more than 200 certified sales and service partners, is close to its customers in over 80 countries and devotes its full attention to their needs.

“Excellent service plays a central role for us. Our service partners are more than just a sales channel, they are the direct, local contact for our customers and therefore the global face of Thermoplan. In regular product training courses on site or in Weggis, we ensure that our service partners always have the latest product and company know-how,” he says.

“We guarantee to always meet individual customer needs and rapidly growing market requirements.

Whether technical questions or individual requirements, we take every concern seriously and are always there for our customers.” G C R For more information, visit www.thermoplan.ch

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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INDUSTRY PROFILE Cafetto

From left: Cafetto’s team including Su Ning Thiang, Christine Song, Chris Short and Jason Bond, are passionate about engaging with customers globally.

Homegrown success CAFETTO REFLECTS ON A 20-YEAR CAREER AND ITS DEVOTION TO DEVELOPING A CLEANING PRODUCT R ANGE THAT SUITS EVERY COFFEE MACHINE APPLICATION ON THE MARKET. t’s one thing for a business to succeed in its home market, and another feat entirely to tackle international expansion, but that’s exactly what Australian cleaning specialist Cafetto has achieved in its 20-year history.

“I’m very proud of what Cafetto has achieved. My colleagues in research and development, Christine [Song] our General Manager, Jason [Bond] our International Business Manager, and the whole team consistently do an incredible job of championing the brand. And of course, there are our wonderful customers, many whom have become absolute advocates for the brand,” says Cafetto Founder Chris Short.

He first found a gap in the market for a coffee machine cleaner when he bought his own San Marino Lisa one-group machine and Mazzer Mini grinder, and realised he needed a cleaning agent.

Deterred by the options available, Chris had the R&D team at his father’s commercial cleaning and sanitation business, Dominant, create a higher-performing formula that would clean well, rinse well, and didn’t have an unpleasant fragrance. The result, Chris says, was a “world-class espresso machine cleaner” and the subsequent development of the Cafetto brand.

It was only a matter of time before the Adelaide-based business started connecting with large Australian roasters and developing cleaning solutions in the form of tablets, sachets, and liquid cleaning products.

Chris become addicted to developing the Cafetto brand and making the best cleaning solutions possible 34

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for any coffee machine in the marketplace at an economical price.

After capturing the Australian market, New Zealand was the next pit-stop in the company’s overseas expansion, with Chris White of Altura Coffee becoming Cafetto’s first international customer in 2006, and still a loyal one today.

Getting recognition and acceptance overseas was a steep hill to climb.

The catalyst for brand recognition came when Chris successfully proposed sponsorship of the World Coffee Championships in 2008, a relationship Chris has nurtured over the past 15 years. This presence on the world stage, in addition to exhibiting at international trade shows, establishing association partnerships, and

building customer relationships in person, is what Cafetto credits to its growth.

To help manage more active product distribution, Cafetto established an office and warehouse in the Netherlands in 2008 to support its European customers.

“The needs of our customers change country to country depending on the popularity of coffee consumption and beverage types, and their patterns of cleaning. In Singapore and Korea for example, they have a great awareness of cleaning needs and the importance of coffee machine maintenance, but other markets are still evolving in the infancy of its learning and development,” says Cafetto General Manager Christine Song.

“Overall, however, the level of cleaning education has improved drastically over the past decade. When I started at Cafetto almost 13 years ago, I had to educate every single customer about the importance of coffee machine cleaning, and how to do it. Now the majority of markets have that awareness and come to us enquiring about the specific product that can best suit their needs.”

The Cafetto product line caters to a broad range of coffee equipment categories including traditional and automatic espresso machines, milk systems and lines, grinders, capsules, brewers, and home machines. It has also pioneered a full range of certified, organic cleaning products, and has expanded its factory to feature temperaturecontrolled dehumidification for quality control.

“Cafetto has expanded its range to markets across the globe, but sometimes we are also challenged to develop a product to suit the market, such as Korea, which has its own specific chemical regulations. This meant we had to totally reformulate our Korean products into a unique formula to be compliant for exporting purposes,” Christine says.

She notes Thailand also has a strict and lengthy Food and Drug Administration approval for all cleaning products entering the country, but says customers can feel assured that Cafetto’s products formulations are suitable for their market, and comply with local regulations and standards thanks to Cafetto’s own regulatory team and external consultants.

Cafetto now distributes products to more than 70 countries including Asia, Europe, the Middle East, United Kingdom, and the Americas. It’s thanks to strong relationships around the world and key distributors, that Cafetto has been able to capitalise on the booming coffee market and its high level of consumption.

From left: Cafetto Founder Chris Short and Ireland-based Bean2Cup Co-Owner Gabriel Filip.

“South Korea has in fact become one of our most successful markets and Aspen Enterprise (South Korea) in Asia, is one of our largest distributors of Cafetto cleaning products,” says Christine.

The plan is to further the brand’s international presence and success, and continue to work closely with businesses to develop machine-specific cleaning solutions. To do that, Chris says the company needs to stay on a path of innovation, research, and development.

“We’re building our team, and we’re also looking at new products to meet new industry trends. We always want to be at the forefront of effective and sustainable cleaning technology,” he says.

Christine adds that Cafetto has had to evolve with changing beverage trends, and currently, is seeing strong uptake for tablet products that are suited to fully automatic machines and automated milk cleaning devices.

Christine, like Chris, takes great pride in seeing Cafetto used throughout the world, and continues to be amazed at the interest and emails from countries and businesses looking for a quality cleaning product.

“Recently we added Mongolia to our client list, and Mauritius,” Christine says. “It’s a big achievement to see the product everywhere. We feel proud to see an Australian product in so many different countries.

It motivates us to hit 80 countries using Cafetto product.”

Christine says it is thanks to Founder Chris’ level of commitment that the brand has evolved globally.

“It’s his passion for Cafetto that’s led out product to the world,” she says.

“I started at Cafetto working in customer service in 2011. Cafetto was still considered very young at that point, with very little presence in the international market. Then, we started getting more and more international business and I took on the role of international business development where I started actively travelling, especially to Asia to establish the Cafetto brand in those markets.”

Now company General Manager, Christine says it’s important the company continues to produce quality products, and stay available to customers.

“We are not a company dispensing product by robots. We want to talk to our customers, tell people who we are, how we can help them, and show them that we can be a point of contact to reach out to.

There’s no point in just having a business that dispenses products at a rapid rate without customer service attached to it. We have to show our customers we care,” she says.

It’s this level of care along with innovation that Christine believes will sustain the business for the next 20 years, along with customer connection that continues to stagger Chris every time he travels.

“In 2017, I went into a beautiful little café in Milan and had a delicious coffee. Everywhere I go, I ask the barista what they use to clean the coffee machine. I asked this one, and they pulled out a jar of Cafetto Evo from under the cabinet. I was delighted. My product used on the other side of the world,” he says.

“I want to see the brand grow. Hopefully, I’m here for a lot longer to see it because it brings joy to my life.” G C R For more information, visit www.cafetto.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

35

TECH PROFILE Cimbali

A new era

The M40 features a new coffee extraction system that will save up to 66 per cent of energy.

CIMBALI GROUP CHIEF MARKETING AND SOLUTIONS OFFICER MAURIZIO TURSINI U NVEILS A R ANGE OF NEW EQUIPMENT TO ADD TO ITS PRODUCT PORTFOLIO. his year has been an eventful one for Italy-based professional espresso machine manufacturer Cimbali Group. Having launched a variety of new products at HostMilano, which took place from 13 to 17 October, Cimbali Group Chief Product Marketing and Solutions Officer Maurizio Tursini has a lot to celebrate.

“HostMilano this year was very important to us as we revealed new equipment across our collection of traditional and fully automatic coffee machines,” says Tursini.

The M40 is the latest traditional coffee machine under the LaCimbali brand, capable of producing three to five kilograms of coffee and up to 240 espresso shots per group head per day. Tursini says this machine not only represents the launch of a new aesthetic under the LaCimbali brand but is also paving the way for a new era of traditional machines.

“The M40 will feature a completely new innovative coffee extraction system that will significantly improve the performance of coffee extraction and save up to 66 per cent of energy while doing so. Generally, the heating system in traditional coffee machines constantly uses energy. In the M40’s ready-to-use mode, the machine only uses energy when extraction is needed, instantly heating the group heads,” he says.

“The M40 is made from 44 per cent recycled materials and the machine itself is more than 94 per cent recyclable. We are always monitoring our machines and how we can improve their overall impact on the environment.”

As a professional machine, the M40 is 20-kilograms lighter than its predecessor, the M39 to allow for easy transportation.

LaCimbali’s Perfect Grinding System provides constant control of coffee-dispensing parameters so the grinder-doser, connected to the machine via Bluetooth, automatically carries out any grinding and dosing corrections to ensure optimal, constant dispensing.

The Barista Drive System (BDS), an integrated system, facilitates the work of the barista by maintaining a 36

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The S-Lite fully automatic machine has telemetry solutions, allowing data communication and remote monitoring.

dialogue between the machine and grinder-doser.

“This innovative technology guides the barista step-by-step through all the beverage preparation stages, from grinding the coffee to dispensing. The BDS enables the on-demand, wireless grinderdoser to identify the coffee dose to grind (single or double), dispense it, and communicate this to the machine,” Tursini says.

“This system is extremely useful when there are several grinder-dosers with different coffee blends.

The grinder-doser tells the machine which blend has been selected and indicates the appropriate coffee dosage. Only the buttons for the recipe compatible with the dispensed blend will light up, while the others are disabled, preventing potential operator error.”

The M40 is available in two, three, or four group heads, which are centred in the middle of the machine to allow the barista enough space to steam milk on one of the two steam wands.

Tursini says due to the M40’s efficiency and capability of producing high quality coffee, the machine will thrive in medium to high productivity locations such as coffee chains and restaurants.

“We are replacing the historical technology LaCimbali is known for with a new novelty system.

We believe this technology is a leapfrog into the future,” he says.

Cimbali Group is also adding to the Casadio range, a historical bar equipment brand under the company’s portfolio of products, with a traditional Nettuno coffee machine.

“Nettuno is our ‘value for money’ machine that offers high quality performance and design. It has customisable features and is compatible with, telemetry platform Art.In.Coffee,” Tursini says.

Nello Casadio founded the Italian company in 1950, in Bologna, initially producing bar equipment before focusing on the production of coffee machines and grinder-dosers, and becoming a recognised specialist in the market.

Casadio joined Cimbali Group in 2009, where it experienced a technological revival and repositioned its offering in the market.

“The Nettuno machine is very much related to the company’s roots and is intended to represent the Casadio brand and its origins,” says Tursini.

To accompany the new range, Cimbali Group is also launching the S-Lite fully automatic espresso machine under the LaCimbali brand.

“The S-Lite is another significant machine allowing us to enter a specific segment of the market with our new digital solution. We have

The Nettuno traditional coffee machine is the latest product from Cimbali Group’s Casadio range.

collaborated with [remote control software company] TeamViewer to launch a new Global Remote Service Program for our corporate customers,” says Tursini.

“Thanks to TeamViewer’s secure connectivity solution, technicians from Cimbali Group or one of our distributors can remotely access clients’ machines to quickly solve problems, and thereby reduce machine downtime and minimise revenue loss for the customer.”

Telemetry solutions and data communication, which is sent by the machine to a web platform, can be used for statistical consumption analysis of, for example, the number of drinks dispensed, both in total and per selection.

“The technology also means that the machine can be monitored constantly, as it provides a realtime snapshot of all the machine’s parts and communicates any errors or malfunctions directly to the technician,” says Tursini.

Tursini continues that the distinction between Cimbali Group’s fully automatic and traditional machines is in the user experience.

“The traditional machine is what we Italians find in bars, whereas fully automatic models are increasingly used in airport lounges and hotels,” he says.

“These two devices, although different, share a certain type of so-called ‘basic’ technology featuring extraction, grinding, preparation of milk and infusions. They are cross-cutting technologies, but the definition of their architecture is completely different.”

Tursini leads a team of around 90 professionals who help him define product and solution strategies.

He is also responsible for the Mumac Academy, the coffee learning centre of Gruppo Cimbali.

Established in 2014, the Academy has trained more than 16,000 baristas and held over 1500 training days since its inception.

“We have a team of 13 trainers and ambassadors that assist with the over 40 training modules across eight branches and 10 labs worldwide. In 2022, we completed 1680 hours of training,” adds Tursini.

Tursini says Cimbali Group is excited to completely renew and add to its product portfolio to reflect the brand’s repositioning in the market.

“HostMilano is one of the most important events in our industry to meet and interact with all our stakeholders. We knew this would be the right moment to introduce a completely new and innovative range of equipment,” he says.

“We are not just focusing on the product; we are focusing on offering coffee solutions to consumers and the experiencing of using our machines to enhance the coffee experience of our stakeholders.” G C R For more information, visit www.cimbaligroup.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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TECH PROFILE Syntegon

The next sustainable generation The Package Maker PDK is one of the newest innovations of packaging solutions from Syntegon.

SYNTEGON INTRODUCES A NEW ITER ATION OF THE PACK AGE MAKER PKD, A U NIQUE HIGH-SPEED SOLUTION FOR VACUUM COFFEE PACK AGING CAPABLE OF HANDLING RECYCLABLE MATERIALS. hen developing new packaging machines, German manufacturer Syntegon looks to combine what has been successful in the past with exciting innovations that best prepare its customers for the future.

The Package Maker PKD is a product of this concept. Designed this year, Syntegon Business Development Manager Marcus Velezmoro says the coffee packaging machine utilises the same proven technology as previous generations of Syntegon machines together with a dedicated focus on sustainability and the materials it uses.

“Packaging materials over time have changed dramatically,” Velezmoro says. “We’ve not changed the basic concept of the machine, but we have introduced new features which are relevant for new requirements to the packaging materials.”

“The machine can operate conventional materials such as aluminium, but it can also cope with recyclable mono-material structures. These have completely different processing windows, so we have worked to allow the machine to cope with both styles since our customers tend to run with both.”

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This alteration has allowed Syntegon to best prepare itself for whichever direction the market leans while maintaining a clean and wrinkle-free package design which best suits branded packs.

Velezmoro says the packaging machine manufacturers expect to see more of a pivot towards recyclable materials from customers, in order to reach legal requirements and green solutions moving forward.

To accommodate these changes, Syntegon has focused on the sealing component of the Package Maker PKD, ensuring coffee bag packages are made with more recyclable materials, and are

sealed twice at lower temperatures.

“The sealing systems are essential when processing these new packaging materials,” he says. “With the Package Maker PKD, we have added additional sealing stations.”

The sealing system runs mostly on remotecontrolled thermal energy, which requires less power compared to other energy solutions. Less packaging material is also needed due to a shorter cut-off length of the vacuum process.

The Package Maker PKD’s versatility extends to the types of coffee it packages.

“There are different degrees of ground coffees, and the machine can handle all those different kinds,” Velezmoro says.

According to Velezmoro, one of the more exciting features of the Package Maker PKD is its dosing system, which ensures accuracy of quantity when filling a bag. This is a result of a weight measurement system and feedback control, which provides a double-stamp system to ensure the right amount of coffee goes into each bag.

“In a high-volume process with an expensive product like coffee, you want to minimise giveaways and overfills,” he says. “We have a staged a filling concept that allows us to achieve the highest possible fill accuracy.”

Syntegon’s evacuation wheel is then used as a fast solution to remove oxygen from packaged coffee. “[The Package Maker PKD] is a high-speed vacuum line that produces the bag, fills the bag, and ultimately evacuates the bag [of oxygen],” says Velezmoro.

The wheel uses a rotary system of 28 chambers that evacuates one bag in each round. The open bag, once filled with coffee beans, is introduced

Marcus Velezmoro is the Business Development Manager for Syntegon.

The Package Maker PKD produces evacuated packs, which Syntegon says is ideal for certain coffee markets.

into the chamber, after which the pressure level drops and the air is taken out of the wheel before the bag is completely sealed, leaving a brick-like package. For compact bags, the machine has a long vibration section and a plunger.

“In Central and Southern Europe, where they have a large production of coffee, they’re always looking to get rid of more air. With an evacuated pack, you can stack [large volumes] while evacuating oxygen,” Velezmoro says.

“There are markets in the world where this has become the standard.”

Velezmoro says a focus on this form of packaging has become even more of a priority for Syntegon in recent years.

“Historically, the brick type offers a perfect utilisation, allowing a way to pack more product than any other pack style,” Velezmoro says.

This prioritisation is one of many market demands Syntegon caters to. The Package Maker PKD was developed with large roasters in mind, meaning efficiency and speed is an important consideration. “[The Package Maker PKD} is a high-speed solution for larger coffee roasters that need 24/7 production,” Velezmoro says. “Everything is made to perform at the highest possible speed.”

Velezmoro adds that this packaging solution is suited to constant operations that demand high-volume output. As such, the Package Maker PKD can pack 130 bags per minute, an output which Velezmoro says is usually only achieved by two machines working together rather than the one unit.

“We’re always trying to challenge the limit,” he says. “This rate is still a benchmark in the industry, but it’s a level that is required by our largest customers.”

Due to added components such as the additional sealing stations, the Package Maker PKD is one of Syntegon’s largest packaging machines which is why it won’t be seen at any international expos.

The Package Maker PKD also features Synexio Empower, a smart machine IoT solution that monitors energy and resource consumption through condition monitoring, data acquisition and visualisation in real time. In this way, Synexio Empower realises the intelligent self-optimisation of the PMX machine.

Thanks to detailed OEE analytics and predictive maintenance, manufacturers are also able to improve plant efficiency and reduce costs. An on-premise system architecture provides the necessary data security.

If required, the solution supports the secure data supply to Syntegon’s Synexio Cloud.

The cloud-based or on-premise solution is just one of the Package Maker PKD’s additions, as Syntegon continues to look for ways to develop its machines to best help its customers.

“We always want to be pioneers, which is why we’re always looking to have a strong collaboration with our customers and their needs,” he says. “And we accompany our customers in every step of the process and offer a comprehensive service.” G C R For more information, visit www.syntegon.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

39

AUTOMATION FEATURE

Becoming a pilot PROBAT TAKES GCR THROUGH ITS PILOT 2020 SOFTWARE , A WEB-BASED CONTROL SOLUTION THAT GIVES USERS THE POWER TO PROACTIVELY CONTROL COFFEE PROCESSES BASED ON TARGETED DATA ANALYSIS. nside a roastery, there are always a number of tasks to fulfil before the final batch of coffee is ready.

This can include adjusting settings on the roaster, testing batches, checking moisture, and making sure the final product is consistent.

German coffee roaster manufacturer Probat wanted to enhance the efficiency of these tasks, so it built a control application from scratch with a touch-optimised interface that provides a completely new user experience, focusing on essential information that monitors and controls the roasting process.

“With Pilot 2020, you can directly compare and reproduce roasting profiles, thus making optimisation a lot easier,” says Probat Executive Vice President of Electrical Engineering Sebastian Fichthorn.

The development of the Pilot 2020 software program began in 2018, when Probat reached out to its customers and visited them to see how they used previous versions of the company’s software technology.

“On the old [software], we used a lot of small icons and images. There were a lot of icons to learn what they meant and to memorise,” Fichthorn says.

This became a focus for Probat when developing the Pilot 2020. While the icons have remained, representing small visuals of different settings, they have been altered so that the user can better understand what’s in front of them.

“With the new application, we still have some icons, but they have descriptions in text underneath that explain what it is they do,” Fichthorn says.

Fichthorn says the Pilot 2020 makes a great accompaniment for a local machine control, and the software’s cloud system, Fabscale, is ideal

The Pilot 2020 control software features an intuitive user interface, where process paramaters can be changed simply by touch.

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AUTOMATION FEATURE for connecting to a series of roasters in the one operation through any number of devices that the user connects with.

“If you want to compare each of your roasters and how efficient they are, you can do this through Fabscale,” he says. “Fabscale’s core is the dashboard and KPI reporting tool, which provides the basis for many detailed domain-specific analyses.”

The Pilot 2020 system can give instant feedback and data from connected roasters, but the information provided by Fabscale provides a more advanced level of data. Roasters can acquire statistics on new and past roasts, performance, efficiency, bean colour, moisture, density, and energy.

The system can process several tasks at the same time, as more than 150 process values are recorded every second on a standard drum roaster for further analysis, making sure the user is well aware of what’s going on inside the machine.

“Energy is getting more expensive and reducing consumption has become pivotal for our customers, so we have integrated a number of functions and controls to save energy,” says Fichthorn. “Current consumption, for example, can be monitored with a notification of the user in case of deviations from a set target value.

“These notifications are a general property of the application. Users see a calm interface, and when their attention is needed, they are directed straight to the point where the deviation occurred to make adjustments accordingly.”

Probat roasters can also be equipped with a variety of smart sensors that collect data and monitor performance metrics. While each type of sensor has a different function they each enable increased production quality, safety, and productivity.

The inline moisture measurement, for example, allows for precise control of the residual moisture level in roast coffee through a microwave sensor.

Inline colour measurement continuously detect the colour value curve of the coffee beans instead of controlling the roasting process as a function of product temperature and time.

In each case, the Pilot 2020 automatically adjusts the relevant parameters to maintain the target values.

Adjustments like this can be seen in a variety of settings on the Pilot 2020, including a customisable interface that enables users to select which statistics are visible.

Once these settings are put in place, the Pilot 2020 system ensures the result meets the set targets, and that each roast produces a consistent product to the satisfaction of the roaster.

With the Fabscale OEE card, you can measure the overall effectiveness of your production process.

Administrative tasks can also be laid out in the Fabscale system, serving as reminders for the machine and staff using it.

“You can schedule maintenance and set up maintenance plans,” Fichthorn says. “With the help of the clear machine status map, it is possible to quickly find out why the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the plant does not correspond to the target value.”

A point of pride in the development of the Pilot 2020, according to Fichthorn, was the multi-layered steps of troubleshooting situations. In the off chance an issue was to occur with a roaster, the program will have a plan in place regardless of the issue.

“We concentrated on troubleshooting with the alarm system,” he says. “Customers are able to build their own knowledge base with the alarm system, as they can put commands on individual alarms which will transfer the information over to their colleagues.”

This allows a fully customisable operation for troubleshooting, as the user can craft their own message for a specific kind of issue. If the alarm were to go off, the Pilot 2020 system issues a notification that explains exactly what the problem is, and a further explanation from the user.

“For different kinds of alarms, you can add your own images and videos that explain what to do in that situation,” Fichthorn says.

This level of customisation is not just featured in the troubleshooting stage. The entire Pilot 2020 solution is designed to focus on the type of information the user needs to know in order to hit the business’ KPIs. To date, the Pilot 2020 system has been installed in more than 80 Probat machines.

“When you roll out a new tailor-made product, you might expect some issues, but [the developers] did an excellent job and it’s running very well,” he says. “We’ve seen a lot of positive feedback and results from the customers, especially in regard to the usability and the data they can get out of it.”

One customer told Probat that the Pilot 2020 software is “as easy to use as an iPad”, and that they could give it to their child, and they would know how to use it.

“We take comments like that as a compliment,” he says. “We’ve created a good package of technology that is not too much to handle.” G C R For more information, visit www.probat.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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In the user’s hands FR ANKE DISCUSSES ITS PRECISIONFOAM TECHNOLOGY, AND HOW THE MYTICO LINE IS VERSATILE TO BEST SUIT BARISTAS WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE .

Franke’s PrecisionFoam technology is available in the Vario machine from the Mytico line.

hen Host Milano roles around every two years, there’s a certain level of anticipation and expectation of the new technology and innovation to be unveiled at the worldrenowned exhibition. In that time frame, engineers, and research and development teams have worked tirelessly to present something that not only gets spectators talking, but has a functionality that provides a solution to a common industry issue, or one the industry doesn’t even know it has until a better idea is presented.

For Swiss coffee machine manufacturer Franke, the event was an opportunity to present the newest generation of the company’s coffee machine suite, the Mytico Line. It features the Due and Vario machines that aim to serve two different user types, yet still allows for consistency with each coffee produced.

“The Due opts for a classical two-step approach, where the barista can decide how they want to froth

The PrecisionFoam technology uses flowmeters to dispense the correct preprogrammed quantity of milk mixed with the correct amount of air.

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their milk, fully automatic or in the traditional way for pouring latte art,” says Franke Product Manager Lubos Petrasko. “It requires a higher skillset of the user, while the Vario has features and functionalities that allow a lesser trained staff member to produce the same consistent quality of drink for the customer.”

One functionality that helps support the barista is the company’s PrecisionFoam technology. New to the Mytico Vario model, and launched at Host Milano, this feature allows the barista to produce milk foam in the desired quantity, temperature and consistency.

“The PrecisionFoam technology uses accurate f lowmeters that dispense the correct preprogrammed quantity of milk mixed with the correct amount of air,” Petrasko says. “The built-in FoamMaster technology guarantees the perfect foam texture and consistency every time.

“The user can produce the milk foam without having to think about when they should take the steam [wand] out of the jug.”

The Vario PrecisionFoam is customisable in terms of milk temperature, amount and consistency. It can be pre-set in the Vario’s setting over the touch screen and saved so that the barista can access various foam profiles, from latte art to extra hot latte or even dry cappuccino.

“For example, if you have a type of foam you use the most for latte art, you can alter the foam profile and achieve that foam every time,” Petrasko says.

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AUTOMATION FEATURE For latte art, users can choose whether they set the machine to dispense the foam from the PrecisionFoam spout straight into a jug, or use the automatic steam wand to froth at the preset profile. A direct one-step preparation can be executed over the two coffee modules.

“It all depends on the theatrics [you want to achieve],” Petrasko says.

He says this PrecisionFoam technology with lever controls unites components of the machine’s automatic features with the traditional method of preparing milk-based coffee.

“Each lever can trigger two assigned actions by either being pushed up or pulled down,” he says. “[The lever] provides an extended user interface that gives the barista different levels of flexibility and time via pre-programmed shortcuts.”

In this way, the Mytico Vario provides the user with options, and allows them to decide just how involved they would like to be in the coffee making process.

“Mytico Vario allows baristas to decide when they can prepare a drink in a more traditional way, and when they may need to rely on automation,” Petrasko says.

“Coffee drinkers appreciate and associate the whole action of the preparation with high coffee quality. We wanted to maintain this aspect [in the Vario].”

It also gives the barista more control and time to address other elements of customer experience.

“With automation, we can support the barista to be more efficient,” Petrasko says. “You can go with the traditional path, or you can have the machine work for you.”

Another new feature of the Mytico line, as featured at Host Milan, is the inclusion of a second cooling unit in the Vario machine.

“Each cooling unit can have either one large 12-litre container or two smaller 4.5-litre containers,” Petrasko says.

“This gives us a wide range of possibilities on what quantities of milk each machine is stocking up, as well as how many milk types per coffee module or machine can be made available as a resource.”

Thanks to the company’s IndividualMilk Technology, each milk type is prepared separately, resulting in no cross contamination.

Having this versatility is paramount for the barista, according to Franke Brand Ambassador and 2023 Irish Barista Champion, Wojciech Tysler.

“With Mytico Vario, you can serve up to four delicious coffees at the same time,” Tysler says. “All

Mytico gives the user more room for customer interaction, creating unforgettable coffee moments.

it takes is a simple press of a button or the pulling down of a Barista Lever. The machine is an excellent choice for high-end bakeries, coffee shops, hotels, and any establishment where owners face challenges with staffing and training baristas.”

With workflow management being a constant concern in cafés, Tysler says the time spent training new baristas can be minimised when operating with the Mytico line.

“Even if the machine and grinder are set up correctly on a traditional machine, there are still 11 steps involved in traditional espresso preparation,” he says.

“With Mytico, you set up the recipe just once, and advanced technologies inside the machine control all aspects of coffee extraction, effectively handling all 11 steps for us, meaning even an inexperienced person can easily make a delicious coffee, day after day.”

Tysler says these technologies, including Franke’s PrecisionFoam, help the barista achieve consistency, which is key to a successful operation.

“Instead of constantly monitoring every extraction, yield and dose, the user can now dedicate more valuable time to their customers, allowing them to provide a truly exceptional coffee experience,” he says.

“Franke’s PrecisionFoam technology gives me an extra pair of hands. Instead of having to fill up the jug with fresh milk every time and then steam. I have a ready, silky, shiny milk just with a pull of the lever.”

Tysler adds that the versatility of milk preparation over the Franke Barista Levers provides an authentic barista-style process. “[The levers] not only provide that dynamic and visually appealing barista ambience but are also incredibly convenient,” he says. “You can effortlessly pre-set your favourite milk options, and with the simple pull of a lever, the machine works its magic.”

Tysler says some customers may prefer their cappuccinos with a “touch of class complete with extra foam”, while others may lean towards a “third wave coffee experience”, but regardless of the preference, the Vario has the flexibility to cater to all taste preferences.

“Mytico is the ultimate tool to ensure every coffee lover gets exactly what they desire,” he says. G C R For more information, visit mytico.franke.coffee NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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The human connection SWISS COFFEE MACHINE MANUFACTURER EVERSYS IS EXPANDING ITS LINE-UP OF COFFEE AMBASSADORS WITH THE ANNOU NCEMENT OF 2023 WORLD BARISTA CHAMPION BOR AM UM JOINING THE TEAM. hen Boram Um won the 2023 World Barista Championship (WBC), his name joined the honour board of the 22 barista champions before him, but he has also joined a community of brand ambassadors who celebrate and advocate for Eversys coffee machine around the world.

It was 2017 WBC winner Dale Harris who first exposed Um to the brand, and discussed how specialty coffee shops were embracing its super-automatic machines to improve operational service in a new wave of automation appreciation.

“I was drawn to how Eversys’ advanced technology and automation is improving coffee quality. That sparked my interest in understanding how the market and specialty coffee service is changing, and how it will impact the future of our barista profession,” Um says.

“Spending hours behind the bar pulling shots doesn’t really allow you to connect with the customer. We lose a lot of the essence of our specialty industry when we can’t explain what’s going on behind the scenes.

World Barista Champion 2023 Boram Um will use his title to bring more attention to highquality Brazilian specialty coffee.

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“Our philosophy [at Um Coffee Co] has always been, ‘let’s push our baristas out of the bar as much as possible to have that connection with the consumer’. However, I think using automated machines in the specialty industry will be a huge step in unlocking our services, gaining a deeper customer connection, extracting better coffees, gathering key information about Brazilian coffee, and sharing how it can be produced more consistently.”

One of the biggest differentials for Um as a WBC ambassador, is his connection to origin as a producer and barista. He says this combined experience gives him the advantage of sharing his knowledge of coffee and sensory experience with consumers.

“The educational part of customer connection and service has always been a crucial part of our operation at Um Coffee Co. One of the main reasons behind that is because Brazilian customers have a huge connection with coffee,” Um says.

“It’s almost outrageous that we would go up to a customer in Brazil and say we’re going to teach them about coffee because they think they know absolutely everything. We have to break down old barriers and knowledge about coffee, and share information on new varietals and ways to process coffee, and it’s something we’ve been doing in our cafés. I think it only opens more doors to producers to get access to market and consumers.”

Since winning the WBC in June 2023, Um has been in demand for TV interviews on mainstream channels that would previously never have talked about specialty coffee, at expos, and travelled to the United States and Canada before joining the Eversys team at Host Milano in Italy for his first official Eversys ambassador duties.

Um is determined to use his title to help bring more high-end, high-quality Brazilian specialty coffee to the world.

“It was one of the biggest barriers we were able to break with my WBC performance, on top of our teamwork. I wanted to show the market that

AUTOMATION FEATURE there’s a different side to high-end Brazilian coffee, and how it connects different people,” Um says.

His global title is a far cry for Um’s previous work in the finance industry. Despite living in a producing country and constantly being connected to the agricultural product that’s embedded deep in Brazil’s cultural identity, Um says his family had no direct relationship to coffee. That all changed however, when his father started a coffee farming business “because he wanted to retire”.

“Obviously, he failed miserably,” Um laughs, “but there’s a reason why my dad decided to start work in the industry – there’s so much potential in terms of production and other connected businesses.”

Um and his father are not traditional Brazilian coffee farmers, and have been open about their “unconventional methods”. At Fazenda Um, they introduced raised African beds to dry coffee on their farm to the dismay of sceptical neighbours.

Now, after their success, all Fazenda Um neighbours use raised African beds. Um and his father even started experimenting with controlled fermentation at a time it was still considered to be “defect coffee”.

“We’ve been called ‘crazy’ so many times in Brazil when we apply different techniques. I think it’s been a good way to bring a refreshing outlook and take to Brazilian coffees. Having my dad with this entrepreneurial mindset and really tackling coffee production in Brazil pushed me to succeed further in the industry as well,” Um says.

At the beginning of his coffee career in 2014, Um started working in quality control. He took his Q grader exam, and helped his family export beans and understand them better. That’s when he realised how many barriers there were to achieving high-end specialty Brazilian coffee.

“I needed to better understand the coffees I was producing in order to sell them. So, I decided – together with my brother – to open a café in São Paulo in Brazil to teach the Brazilian customer about high quality coffee. If we could do that, in a country that has a proud coffee heritage, then maybe we would have the edge that we need to serve our coffees abroad,” Um says.

He worked for about three to four years in the café before dabbling in coffee competitions.

“In 2015, I watched my first WBC. I knew there were other coffee competitions going on, so we pushed our employees and baristas to start competing as soon as they started,” he says. “Since 2016, we have had baristas competing at a national level, but we reached a limit. We always placed

Boram Um is fascinated how Eversys’ advanced technology and automation is helping improve coffee quality.

third on the national stage. We realised there was a knowledge gap missing. That’s when my brother and I decided to start competing.”

Training was intense. Um and his brother fell down a rabbit hole of education and references from different coaches and coffee professionals around the globe.

“One of the biggest advantages was being able to connect to different coffee communities and professionals in Japan and Canada. That’s how we started building our team to compete at Worlds. I think that was the biggest advantage – getting to know other successful baristas and trying to improve everything we could,” he says.

His first competition in 2019 was focused on anaerobic fermentation to bring out complexity of his Brazilian coffee. He placed 16th on the world stage. The next year in 2022, he placed seventh.

For his 2023 performance, however, Um displayed new processing and drying techniques to highlight the full potential of Brazil’s quality, and it was this routine, combined with his technical prowess and engaging presentation, that sealed the WBC win.

Eversys Marketing Director Andre Eiermann has been following Um’s career progression for the past few years. They spent almost a month together in 2022 in preparation for Um’s 2022 WBC attempt in Melbourne. The next time they would meet, was when Um became World Champion.

“Boram truly understands the entire coffee value chain. I admire his dedication and teamwork, which I got to see first-hand in his Melbourne preparation. This value perfectly fits with Eversys,” Eiermann says. “He is very detailed, data driven, and thorough in his work. He is humble, authentic, and friendly, and will be a great ambassador for Eversys. A partnership has to have chemistry and embrace the human connection, and we have that in Boram.”

Eiermann adds that while baristas may still be apprehensive about the role of automation in their line of work, having Um on board the Eversys team will go a long way in demystifying any doubts.

“When you’re pulling 1000 to 2000 shots a day, I don’t understand what’s cool about dosing, tamping, looking at the scale at all the time or holding a steam wand when you could be looking at the eyes of a customer, smiling at them, and communicating with each one that enters your café. That’s why it’s important to have people on board that are great when it comes to human connection,” Eiermann says.

“We want to have a real barista behind our equipment that helps us to improve and think like a barista.

There is nothing better than connecting a World Barista Champion with our research and development team with no filter in between. We can’t wait to see where this new partnership takes us.” G C R For more information, visit www.eversys.com/en/ NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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Level up

The WMF 1500 F is the company’s latest automatic coffee machine innovation.

WMF DEEP DIVES INTO ITS NEW COFFEE MACHINE , THE WMF 1500 F, AND EXPLAINS HOW IT COMBINES SPEED AND AUTOMATION WITH CONSISTENT HIGH QUALITY OF FRESHLY FILTERED COFFEE . or high-volume businesses, finding the right coffee machine to match the required coffee output is crucial. German coffee machine manufacturer WMF is looking to make the decision easier with the release of its latest innovation, the WMF 1500 F automatic coffee machine.

“Freshly filtered coffee is an indispensable part of the beverage menus of modern coffee concepts,” says WMF Professional Coffee Machines Vice President of Strategic Marketing Geoffroy Rupprecht. “To ensure that the popular beverage can be prepared in consistently high quality even at peak times, the new WMF 1500 F fully automatic bean-to-batch machine offers a powerful machine concept.”

“There are many areas where filtered coffee must be prepared quickly and reliably in large quantities, and at a consistently high quality. With the WMF 1500 F, we now have a new solution that precisely meets this requirement and perfectly complements the solution portfolio of WMF Professional Coffee Machines.”

The machine can fully produce fresh filtered coffee in seven seconds, thanks to the integrated fourlitre storage urn that can help produce up to 220 cups of coffee per day.

“The optional automatic re-brewing makes for high efficiency during peak periods,” says Rupprecht.

“With the help of a user-friendly timer, customers can adapt the required coffee quantity to suit their individual requirements.”

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Filtered coffee batches between 0.5 to one litre using the WMF 1500 F can be prepared quickly and reliably in large quantities for highvolume venues including bakeries, petrol stations, breakfast stations, hospitals, nursing homes, offices, hotels, and conferences.

Customers can choose two bean hoppers holding 700 grams and 1100 grams.

The heart of the machine, according to Rupprecht, is its advanced pressure-brew technology, which allows the machine to work with freshly ground beans and brews them in portions.

“When the coffee grinder has completed its grinding process, the portioned ground coffee moves into the brewing chamber.

AUTOMATION FEATURE During the brewing processes, water flows onto the ground coffee at a precise temperature via a distributor sieve, ensuring ideal extraction,” Rupprecht says.

WMF’s telemetry solution, CoffeeConnect, is also featured in the company’s latest machine.

As it does with other WMF coffee machines, CoffeeConnect enables the WMF 1500 F to communicate with other systems and devices across the company’s range, including with Enterprise Resource Planning systems via the cloud for pay-per-cup in franchising models.

“The wide portfolio of digital solutions makes it possible to gain insight into machine data, optimise processes, increase the performance of the machine fleet, and open up completely new business models,” says Rupprecht.

Time saving was also a clear priority in the development of the WMF 1500 F, evident by the way the machine disposes of dry coffee grounds.

The WMF 1500 F includes options for hoppers, including 700 grams and 1100 grams.

Geoffroy Rupprecht is Vice President of Strategic Marketing at WMF Professional Coffee Machines.

“[The disposal] takes place via the internal grounds box or optionally through the counter into a larger collection container,” Rupprecht says.

“WMF customers no longer have to deal with the time-consuming but also unpleasant wet grounds disposal, which is still one of the market pain points.”

Rupprecht says the machine’s small footprint and compact design stands out, standing at 32.5 centimeters wide, 88.1 centimeters tall, and 59 centimeters deep.

“Like all WMF fully automatic machines, the WMF 1500 F is a real design eye-catcher and looks perfect in combination with other WMF machines and add-on equipment,” he says.

According to Rupprecht, WMF is putting more of a focus on automation in general, in addition to its WMF AutoClean, Dynamic Milk Assist and Dynamic Coffee Assist features, seeing it as the key to coffee concepts of the future.

“WMF is one of the first manufacturers to actively take up the success-critical importance of automated workflows and data analyses and implement them in new solutions,” he says. “The goal is always to get the best out of practical optimisation potential.”

Among the goals of WMF in the automation space is to make the day-to-day operations of businesses more efficient, transparent, and more attractive in terms of revenue.

In turn, the company believes this will help retain customers and acquire new ones while developing new business models.

“In times of acute staff shortages, cost pressure and rising customer demands, it is crucial for process reliability and efficiency to free staff from repetitive and time-consuming tasks so that they can concentrate on sales and customer service,” says Rupprecht.

WMF has shown in recent years that fully-automated coffee machines can reliably deliver high quality coffee in large quantities.

“The setting parameters on fully automatic machines have improved extremely in recent years and thus ensure a consistently high coffee quality,” Rupprecht says. “For the consistent further development of the WMF premium standard, our professional coffee trainers and coffeeologists work hand in hand with our development engineers.”

Rupprecht believes this rising growth of popularity for automated machines will continue, so long as companies such as WMF look to innovate further with new technologies.

“We see a clear trend towards everything that supports and specifically relieves the on-site workforce, whether in the conceptual area such as self-service or in functional terms with fully automatic machines,” he says. G C R For more information, visit www.wmf-coffeemachines.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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All the answers SCHAERER DISCUSSES ITS COFFEE LINK PORTAL SYSTEM, AND HOW ITS CLOUD TECHNOLOGY GIVES BUSINESSES STATISTICAL SOLUTIONS TO QUESTIONS NOT YET ASKED. Customers can connect to the Coffee Link Portal from any device of their choosing .

hen we don’t know the answer to something, it’s common to turn to the internet for a solution. But not every question can be easily answered by the internet.

What are my busiest hours of operation? Do my customers prefer oat or soy milk? Are we wasting too much of our product? What’s our most popular drink?

While Google can’t help with these questions, Schaerer’s Coffee Link Portal can. The Swiss coffee machine manufacturer has been developing its cloud technology for years.

As such, the company is now able to provide the answers to questions customers haven’t even considered.

“As technological trends changed over the years and awareness of the internet increased, a new digital strategy was developed in 2016 and our first Coffee Link Portal was established in 2018,” says Schaerer Digital Product Manager Irina Simon. “The purpose of the Schaerer Coffee Link is to digitally optimise the coffee business, to enable new business models, and to improve the end customer experience at the machine.”

Simon says understanding the behaviours of customers is paramount to helping a business grow, and using data to analyse beverage and consumption trends is the way forward.

“When it comes to beverage portfolios, a lot of people are interested in what preferences customers have,” she says. “We have dedicated analytics and dashboards that can show exactly what’s popular.”

Through conversing with the Schaerer team, the company can make specialised databases for any information the customer requests, including dashboards that incorporate data from a fleet of machines within the one business.

Simon says the range of data accessible to Schaerer customers was an important factor when developing the Coffee Link Portal technology, since every business has its own requirements, and their own questions that need answers.

“Since we are offering such a wide digital portfolio, different kinds of customers can find a solution dedicated to their needs,” she says.

Simon adds that the development of this technology in recent times has been a direct response to numerous trends in the coffee industry, such as the shortage of skilled workers and sustainability concerns.

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“We want to help our customers keep pace with changing consumer behaviours and customer experience,” she says.

“Sustainability plays a big role [in the coffee industry] at the moment. Through the portal, you can get insights on energy consumption, or you can look at ingredients and how much each one is used, so you can reduce waste in your operations.”

To empower businesses with information, Schaerer coffee machines feature a modem that collects valuable data, by which the company can then offer consulting services to analyse the technological findings.

“Schaerer was one of the first coffee machine manufacturers to recognise the potential and importance of digital solutions as a complement to the actual coffee machine business, and to include it all in the one portfolio,” says Simon. “Through our experience, we see that our customers are at very different points in their own individual digital journeys, and therefore have completely different needs.”

The Schaerer team has divided these differing journeys into three general stages, organised not by experience owning and operating a café, but through technological knowledge. As customers

AUTOMATION FEATURE progress through each stage, Schaerer provides more resources to further grow their business, while incorporating more technology into their operations.

“The consultation and customer care at the very beginning of the partnership is extremely important,” says Simon. “The customer is brought into the system where they are at that moment [in terms of digital readiness] and we’ll find the product that fits their needs.”

Customers in the earliest stage of technology development and knowledge are considered “transparency seekers”.

“The transparency seeker is mainly interested in exploring the coffee machine data, with the objective to gain insights about sales performance, ingredient consumption and service-related issues,” Simon says. “The visualized data [provided

by Schaerer] helps customers get insights on coffee sales and machine availability, as well as monitor the coffee machine life cycle.”

Once customers start to gain knowledge on some of the basic statistics provided, Schaerer advances them into the next category of ‘Coffee Business Optimisers’, which teaches customers how to get results and data from a fleet of Schaerer machines.

“The optimisers are the ones that really want to grow and expand,” says Simon. “[Coffee Business Optimisers] are not only using the data visualisation but are also using bi-directional communication and remote actions to optimise their businesses.”

Irina Simon is the Digital Product Manager for Schaerer.

The Coffee Link Portal dashboard allows for the easy reading of statistics that can help a cafe grow.

The third category, called Business Developers, are provided with more data feedback from Schaerer, which allows them to expand their businesses by prototyping and rolling out new concepts.

“The objective [at this stage] is to integrate the coffee machine in existing digital ecosystems and I.T landscapes,” Simon says. “Generally, this is related to self-service concepts or to increase the quality of the user’s experience, including integrating the coffee machine into existing apps, unmanned stores, robot cafés, and so on.”

Simon adds that customers that use their own apps for their businesses have found the Schaerer system especially helpful.

“The mobile phone is the most frequently used device nowadays, and therefore it is also a focus in our industry,” she says.

The versatility of the digital solutions and the Coffee Link Portal have allowed Schaerer to reach markets from across the world, and address the unique concerns each community has.

“In different markets, such as China or the United States, we need to understand that they face different challenges to what we face in Europe,” says Simon. “Customers show different buying behaviours, which is why it’s always a question of balance and prioritisation with what we implement.

“With the remote functionalities we developed in Coffee Link, we can prevent having to send someone over to fix machines.”

Users can access this information through the Coffee Link Portal, or through Schaerer’s Application Programming Interface (API).

Simon says the major difference between the two sources is that the API data is presented in a raw fashion, meaning someone less advanced along their digital understanding might have trouble interpreting the figures.

“It’s important to understand that the data in the portal has already been prepared and thus made readable, whereas with APIs, the data is raw, and the interpretation must be done by the client,” she says.

Simon adds that the technology can be useful in inspiring businesses to reach greater heights with more knowledge at their disposal.

“Businesses can maximise the potential of digital solutions by thinking outside the box and looking at other sectors and industries,” she says. “The value of a digital solution lies not in its technology, but in how it enriches people’s lives.”

By providing the answers to any question a coffee shop might have, through a personalised and thorough approach, Schaerer says there is no need for frantic internet searches to quickly improve a business.

“We always put the customers’ concerns in the centre, and we look for ways to support them digitally.” G C R For more information, visit ww.schaerer.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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Poursteady allows a barista to make around one cup per minute when all stations are in use.

A steady hand POURSTEADY EXPLAINS WHY THE AUTOMATIC POUR-OVER MACHINE MIGHT NOT ONLY MEAN A SHORTER WAIT TIME FOR A COFFEE , BUT A BETTER CUP ALTOGETHER. hile waiting for a coffee at a San Francisco café in 2012, robotics engineers Stuart Heys and Mark Sibenac observed a barista struggling to meet demand for pour-over coffee. As the line continued to grow, they realised how they could help speed up the process.

Heys and Sibenac went about building the first automatic pour-over coffee maker prototype for busy coffee shops. They applied the same engineering and technology the National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses for test rovers, and laboratory equipment used in the pharmaceutical industry.

“We brought the first prototype to the New York City Maker Faire in 2013, where we made over 800 cups of coffee in the first weekend,” says CEO and Co-Founder Stephan von Muehlen. “We took home a bunch of awards, and that’s when we realised there might be more to this than just a science fair project.

That was how Poursteady was born.”

As designers and engineers, co-founders von Muehlen, Sibenac, Heys, and Greg Mihalko were confident they could create a reliable industrial system that would make waves in the specialty coffee industry.

“We invested all our time in learning from coffee professionals to create a tool that would meet the needs of the retail coffee environment. Our elevator pitch was that we were making a product that could 50

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make pour over work as well as espresso in a busy coffee shop,” von Muehlen says.

Poursteady automatic brewers are designed to bring unprecedented speed, precision, and reliability to commercial coffee retailers and better coffee to their customers by combining automation, information technology, and design.

The brand’s first product, the PS1 five-cup system, was launched at the 2015 Specialty Coffee Expo in the United States, where it took home the Best New Product award.

“The PS1 allows for each recipe you program on a station to be repeated exactly the same way, every time you press the button,” says von Muehlen.

When continuously running, a barista can make around one cup per minute when all

AUTOMATION FEATURE stations are in use. Von Muehlen says pour-over orders are a simple button press instead of a time intensive task.

“You can also dial-in your roasts with custom pour pulses, varying pour patterns, all using our professional cloud-based interface,” he says.

In 2016, Poursteady launched the PS1-3 threecup system, then unveiled the PS2 two-cup system in April 2023 at the Specialty Coffee Expo. Von Muehlen says it has a new design, smaller footprint, better technology, and more customisability.

“Poursteady PS2 makes it easier than ever to dial-in and switch between recipes on the machine. The user can choose between the preprogrammed library of recipes, or tailor each recipe themselves on the machine or through the app,” he says.

“It also offers more flexibility to create recipes when and how you want. You can create or edit recipes directly on the machine or use the Poursteady app to create on the device of your choice. Some cafés will stick to the settings programmed on installation, while others will alter these as they bring new coffees into rotation.”

The barista just needs to grind and dose the coffee, then watch the magic unfold.

“The operation of the Poursteady via web app is extremely versatile and can be as simple or as in depth as any barista would like. Starting with the brewer type and coffee dose, your team are able to input a wide range of variables and receive brew ratios and total brewing time in return,” von Muehlen says.

“Then comes the water dispense, and this is the fun part. Via the app, you can select and then fully automate the shape, size, and timing of each pour from the rotating nozzle which will whip, with lighting speed, from pour-over to pour-over on the rack. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with these variables. For example, one long pour verses 10, 12 or 20 pulses. Diving deeper again, you can choose from many different pouring patterns which you can pair to the specific needs of your pour-over choice. The options really are endlessly variable, yet infinitely repeatable.”

Von Muehlen adds that the tankless integrated on-demand boiler means precise temperature control, and more nuance for recipes. He says the user can reduce maintenance and install complexity with no tank, no pump, and fewer moving parts.

“Going from a boiler to an in-line heater has an enormous effect on its carbon footprint and energy use. A boiler maintains four to 10 litres of

water at near boiling temperature for as long as you’re using the machine. Although it’s insulated, you’re preserving a mass of water indefinitely. An in-line heater simply heats the water that you’re using right then and there. The idle energy consumption is much lower than that of a boiler,” von Muehlen says.

“The small footprint and customisable, clean design of the Poursteady is the perfect statement piece for any countertop. Baristas can wow customers not just with a perfect cup of coffee but give them a show while they wait.”

Every piece of the unit is manufactured in house by Poursteady or sourced from trusted vendors. Each machine is assembled and tested for thousands of cycles at the Poursteady headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, before heading out into the world. Aside from build quality, von Muehlen says the Poursteady comes to life and gathers onlookers when it’s in action.

Poursteady automatic pour-over coffee machines have been installed in cafés and coffee shops around the globe.

Von Muehlen says the unique and thoughtful style, the engineered precision of the pour, and the ability to program recipes with an easy-to-use application have made pour-over coffee fast, efficient, and delicious.

“Really balancing automation and craft is important to us. Brewing coffee, especially pour-over, is a ritual and the barista brings a lot to it, and we don’t want to bring any more automation to the process than is necessary. For the shop owner and coffee roaster, Poursteady is about making sure they’re selling a consistent cup of coffee,” he says.

“What Mark and Stuart saw in that coffee shop almost 10 years ago was this overworked barista who had to focus in on weighing and timing all these coffees, all without interacting with customers. Poursteady was designed to lift that pressure on the barista, so that everyone can have a better coffee experience.”

Poursteady is focused on distributing the PS2 model worldwide and honing its research on new product development.

“We’re a small team with a lot of passion. We’re taking it one product at a time, but we look forward to growing our product line,” von Muehlen says. G C R For more information, visit www.poursteady.com Poursteady PS2 can dial-in and switch between recipes on the machine.

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EVENTS

Creating memories THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COFFEE EXPO WILL RETURN FOR 2024, SHOWCASING THE VERY BEST OF AUSTR ALIA’S COFFEE MARKET AND WHY IT REMAINS A GLOBAL COFFEE LANDMARK. s the Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) wrapped its 10th edition in August, Show Director Lauren Winterbottom couldn’t help but reflect on the continued evolution of the expo. In the past decade, MICE has remained a permanent fixture of the coffee calendar, hosted the World Coffee Championships, and been a reliable annual place to connect buyers and sellers of the Australian coffee market.

“The 10th edition was a huge milestone for the show. It shows the importance of MICE for the industry, the fact that it’s still going strong after so many years and remains relevant to the industry,” Winterbottom says.

The expo has grown significantly in the past decade, including the number of visitors and exhibitors both Australia and abroad.

Over 10,000 attendees coming from 56 countries walked through the doors of MICE2023 to see the 125 exhibitors.

“That level of attendance, especially coming out of hosting the 2022 World Coffee Championships, is impressive,” Winterbottom says.

“The first expo was hosted at the Melbourne Showgrounds, in what was essentially a giant tent, and now has a permanent home at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, a proper exhibition venue that is a true reflection of the sophistication and level of superiority the event has on the global coffee scale.”

Over 10,000 attendees visited MICE in 2023 to see 125 exhibitors from 56 countries.

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The exhibitor stands themselves have also evolved in size and creativity, with more companies looking to make their mark in the competitive coffee landscape.

“The quality of exhibition stands is fantastic.

Companies really do invest in the way their stand looks and feels, which is great to see and a credit to the industry, but it’s also not a prerequisite,” says Winterbottom.

“We know the market is challenged with rising inflation and cost of supplies. What matters above all, is the delivery of product, promotion, and purpose. If a customer can walk away with a great connection, and the exhibitor has had a meaningful conversation that leads to a greater opportunity, then MICE has done its job of connecting buyers and sellers.”

That purpose will continue in the 11th edition of the expo, which has been announced to take place from 12 to 14 May 2024.

Favourite regular features of the expo will return, including the event’s focus on sustainability, utilising waste collection programs and looking at more sustainable cup options, among other things, to make the show more environmentally friendly.

Plans are already underway to introduce new concepts and features that will continue the event’s relevance in the market, and see it evolve with the market’s changing needs.

According to Winterbottom, the expo is always looking to attract more exhibitors, and hopes to see a high contingent of international exhibitors and visitors return to Melbourne to maximise their market opportunities, and connections in the Asia Pacific.

“MICE will always be a place to connect café owners and baristas with suppliers and

manufacturers, but it’s also a place where businesses come to invest in large-scale services if they’re looking for expansion and growth potential,” she says.

MilkLab will continue as the expo’s platinum sponsor in 2024, with returning exhibitors including Veneziano, Bean Cartel, Sanremo, La Marzocco, Coffee Works Express, Southland Merchants, AMC, Bombora, Barista Group, Loring, VortX, Monin, Kerry, Naked Syrups, Riverina Fresh, Procal, Vitasoy and Biopak, to name a few.

Winterbottom notes that among international exhibitors in recent years have been software developers and manufacturers looking to introduce new technology into the Australian coffee scene. This opportunity extends both ways, as Australian developers of the same technology can offer their services to the international market.

For international guests, the expo provides a unique opportunity to witness the best of the Australian coffee scene and a gateway to the Asia Pacific.

“I think the main selling point of MICE to international exhibitors would be access to the thousands of Australian roasters and café operators who attend, and the potential to make connections with the intention to export their products,” says Winterbottom.

“It’s also a great opportunity for international visitors to take Australian innovation back to their own countries to help other businesses expand.

VortX is one of many international exhibitors that will be coming to MICE next year.

Guests are able to witness the newest in coffee innovation, both domestic and international.

If the Australian coffee market can remain a source of inspiration and standard to others, it only helps lift the industry as we grow together.”

When making a commitment to travel to the land Down Under, Winterbottom says it’s important guests get the chance to immerse in the Melbourne café culture and see first-hand why the city’s coffee culture reputation proceeds it.

“Melbourne has always been the home of coffee for Australia. It’s a destination for coffee lovers that has really been cemented over the last 10 years of MICE,” she says.

She adds that many roasting brands, and even foreign coffee professionals now call Melbourne home, including 2013 World Barista Champion Pete Licata of Nomad Coffee Group, who moved permanently to pursue his coffee career.

“The opportunity to showcase Melbourne to international guests every year is really exciting. It’s our cultural DNA but also part of the city’s tourism landscape,” Winterbottom says.

“Everything you could possibly want to discover in a city can be found in Melbourne.”

MICE is one of many coffee expos that takes place each year on the international coffee calendar, but Winterbottom says what separates this one is its level of engagement between exhibitors and industry connection with visitors.

“We’ve got a lot of fun competitions and giveaways that are pretty unique. All will be revealed soon,” she says.

MICE 2024 will have an increased focus on attracting visitors from the greater hospitality industry, including catering businesses, retailers, and larger companies looking to expand their horizons for coffee machines in the workplace, all while maintaining a strong focus on the wider coffee industry.

The MICE team hopes to keep the positive momentum and the growth of the expo moving forward, with next year’s edition featuring the return of the Product Innovation Awards that will include a new category specifically for roasters.

“MICE is the place to be in 2024. Get yourself down here. Book your flights and accommodation early, and make the most of ‘that trip to Australia you always wanted,’” Winterbottom says. “It really is a one-stop shop for those looking to break into the Australian market.” G C R For more information, visit www.internationalcoffeeexpo.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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PRODUCT Marketplace

Cafetto Cleaning Collection To celebrate its 20th birthday, Cafetto is bringing complete machine cleaning standards to the at home barista with a limited edition Cafetto Cleaning Collection. Cafetto’s expert team has hand-picked its most organically focused products to create a regular use kit that takes complete care of the clean behind the machine. Fit for every day, the pack includes essential items that are sustainably focused that the at home barista needs to fulfil their end-to-end organic solution. With a total of three products including EVO for Espresso Machine Cleaning, MFC Powder ECO for steam wand and milk cleaning and Renew Descaler, the user will have complete confidence in knowing they are covered for each step of the cleaning process with quality products, backed by 20 years of coffee-machine cleaning excellence.

For more information, visit www.cafetto.com

HeyCafé Allround Grinder Jack HeyCafé introduces the Allround Grinder Jack, available in either black or white color. The grinder is equipped with brand-new burrs, proudly crafted in Germany.

Jack is meticulously designed to enhance your coffee grinding journey, boasting a compact hopper and a versatile purge unit. Experience the flexibility of single-dose grinding with the included purge unit, allowing you to explore a range of grinding options. This feature integrates a new level of convenience to your daily routine.

With its exceptional performance and an appealing price point, Jack promises an unmatched value for money.

For more information, visit www.heycafe.com

Schaerer digital offerings To provide optimal support for customers in connecting their Schaerer coffee machines, Schaerer is further aligning its digital consulting and solution portfolio with the multifaceted demands of its customers. This evolved offering considers not only the specific business case but also the depth of the customer’s immersion in the digital world. While some are still at the beginning of their digital journey, monitoring the status and consumption data of connected coffee machines, others use the data foundation to make processes more productive or implement innovative business models. The digital offering is tailored to the three central requirement realms of gaining transparency, optimising business, and realising innovations. The foundation for these tailored solutions lies in the digital platform Schaerer Coffee Link, API interfaces developed by Schaerer, and the experience gained from connecting nearly 120,000 professional coffee machines worldwide to businesses of all sizes.

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Slayer Espresso Although every Slayer Espresso machine is designed and crafted in Seattle, United States, Slayer Espresso itself came directly from the specialty coffee community.

The founders of Slayer Espresso, baristas, roasters, and technicians, were interested in flipping the narrative, making a machine from the perspective of the user. Slayer Espresso was founded so it could make machines that suited the specialty coffee industry.

Slayer Espresso is for baristas, roasters, and everyone who strives to make coffee better. The machines always consider those people because it was born from those people. This community is its home; it’s where it was born, it’s where it was given its name, and it’s where its future comes from.

For more information, visit slayerespresso.com

Syntegon aroma protection According to Syntegon, aroma protection is one of the most important requirements for ensuring high quality coffee. One-way degassing valves guarantee the reliable packaging of oxygen sensitive products and have a long shelf-life of up to 30 months. Thanks to proven ultrasonic technology, up to 100 valves per minute are sealed on the inside of the packaging material, even if recyclable films are made with mono-materials. Outside degassing valves can be used for smaller packages with less space. It achieves maximum quantities with up to 120 self-adhesive valves per minute. Users can also save time and protect employees, as refilling is carried out ergonomically at ground level. All existing packaging machines as well as pre-made bag machines can be retrofitted thanks to the high flexibility of the valve solution concept by Syntegon.

For more information, visit www.syntegon.com

WMF 1500 F The WMF 1500 F bean-to-cup machine can prepare freshly filtered coffee quickly and reliably in large quantities and guarantees consistently high quality. At the core of the WMF 1500 F is progressive pressure-brew technology. In contrast to conventional industry concepts, the WMF system works with freshly ground beans rather than with ground coffee, producing premium beverages. The fully automatic machine also sets benchmarks when it comes to speed. Thanks to an integrated 4-litre storage urn, guests can enjoy their coffee after only seven seconds. The recommended output of the bean-to-cup machine is 220 cups per day. The WMF 1500 F is user-friendly, convenient, efficiently disposes of dry grounds, and has an automatic cleaning system for daily maintenance of the coffee machine.

For more information, visit www.wmf.com

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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DIARY Dashboard

Global coffee: 1

Taiwan International Coffee Show

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TAIPEI, TAIWAN

17 — 20 November Every year, the Taiwan International Coffee Show is also held in conjunction with the Taiwan International Tea Show, Wine & Spirits Festival, and Food Industry Show.

The event includes an extensive trade show, several showrooms, and an online exhibition.

Taking place at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, the show will also host the 2023 World Latte Art Championship, World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, and World Coffee Roasting Championship in partnership with the Taiwan Coffee Association.

www.chanchao.com.tw/ coffee 2

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World of Coffee

Coffee Expo Seoul

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

Specialty Coffee Expo

21 — 24 March 2024

CHICAGO, UNITED STATES

21 — 23 January 2024 World of Coffee Dubai is the premier coffee trade show for visitors and exhibitors from the Middle East and around the world. The event caters towards those looking to break into the emerging coffee industry in the Middle East. Show features include the Roaster Village, lectures, cupping room, the UAE National Championship, Brew Bar, SCA Community Lounge, and more than 300 exhibitors for those looking to establish their business in the coffee world. The 2023 World of Coffee Dubai gathered over 233 exhibitors from all over the world and welcomed over 10,000 visitors.

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Coffee Expo Seoul 2024 is the first of two major coffee events to make their way to South Korea in 2024. The annual expo will see more than 60,000 buyers connect with the coffee industry throughout the four-day event.

Hundreds of varieties of global coffee beans will be showcased, along with gourmet food, raw materials, and state-of-the-art coffee machines and equipment. The 2023 Expo saw over 30,000 visitors come to Seoul to analyse the very best of the Asian coffee market.

Guests who pre-register through the expo website will be granted free admission for the entire event.

www.coffeeexposeoul.com

12 — 14 April 2024 The Speciality Coffee Expo will be returning to Chicago for 2024. The event is for everyone in the coffee world, from roasters to retailers to industry decision makers. Professionals can learn from the industry’s most innovative and cutting-edge coffee products while also expanding their careers and networks. Coffee enthusiasts from all professional background are welcome to participate or view the expo.

Attendees who book accomodation through the expo’s website can take advantage of special rates.

www.coffeeexpo.org

events around the globe 8

World of Coffee COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

27 — 29 July 2024

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The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) will be hosting three global trade shows in the same year for the first time, with the final instalment of the World of Coffee series taking place in Denmark. World of Coffee Copenhagen will feature the 2024 World Latte Art, World Coffee in Good Spirits and World Coffee Roasting Championships. The city’s progressive approach to business, technology, design, and trade made Copenhagen an ideal destination for the coffee trade show. Attendee registration is set to open in early 2024.

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World of Coffee BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA

Toronto Coffee Festival

1 — 4 May 2024

TORONTO, CANADA

Melbourne International Coffee Expo

10 — 12 May 2024

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

World of Coffee Busan 2024 marks the first World of Coffee trade show in Asia, and is a testament to the growth of the specialty coffee industry in this part of the world. Taking place at the Busan Convention and Exhibition Centre (BEXCO), will welcome coffee traders from around the world. The expo will also feature the 2024 World Barista Championship, which will see competitors demonstrate their skills in a chance to be crowned champion of the world. The trade show is still accepting applications for both exhibitors and sponsors, with registration available on the World of Coffee website.

asia.worldofcoffee.org

Canada’s flagship coffee event with celebrate Toronto’s diverse and vibrant coffee scene at Evergreen Brick Works. The festival will feature more than 100 artisan coffee and gourmet food vendors, tastings, and demonstrations from Canada’s top baristas. The festival will include 30-minute interative demos and workshops on weekends designed to boost your knowledge.

With additional features such as live music, DJs and art exhibitions, there’s something for everyone.

www.toronto-coffeefestival. com

12 — 14 May 2024 The Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) is known throughout the Asia Pacific as its largest dedicated coffee event.

Established in 2012, MICE connects café owners, roasters, equipment manufacturers, service suppliers and more to facilitate real business opportunities both in Australia and around the world. The 2023 expo saw almost 11,000 attendees walk through the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Internationalcoffeeexpo.com NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 | GCR

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LAST WORD Nespresso

Introducing N°20 GLOBAL COFFEE GIANT NESPRESSO HAS LAU NCHED N°20, A NEW AND BESPOKE COFFEE CULTIVATED FOR SUPERIOR TASTE TO SURPRISE COFFEE DRINKERS. wenty years in the making, N°20 has been Nespresso’s best kept secret. Since 2003, Nespresso’s coffee masters have worked to create this high-quality Arabica coffee plant in response to increased consumer demand for rare and high-quality varieties.

“For me personally to finally reveal this secret that we have been keeping for years fills me with joy and true humbleness,” says Nespresso Head of Coffee Development Alexis Rodriguez.

Nespresso first identified the best Arabicas from its Coffee Collection Catalogue, then the ideal terroir to give the variety the best chance of success.

“This was also the time when third wave coffee was in its early days, and we wanted to go in the direction of aromatic coffees with full traceability,” says Rodriguez.

“N°20 is the first in our new premium segment which will offer some of the finest-tasting and most highly sought-after coffees in the world.”

Nespresso’s experts took inspiration from generations of farmers who have traditionally cross-planted coffee varieties to create more resilient plants.

“Using trial-and-error in three countries, Colombia, Nicaragua and Indonesia, with different terroirs, we finally identified the two that, year after year, constantly delivered the high- quality we looked for and where the plant flourished,” Rodriguez says.

N°20 thrived best in the soil of the Cauca and Caldas regions of Colombia. There, the coffee was grown by 59 farmers through Nespresso’s AAA Sustainable Quality Program. They collectively planted and cared for one million coffee trees and were consequently paid a premium as a reward for their investment in producing the sustainable, high-quality crop.

“We invited AAA farmers for a meeting in Caldas and Cauca in Colombia, and the ones keen to participate in this long-term innovation project could sign up as interested to partake. Thanks to The N°20 variety was made by cross-planting coffee varieties to create more resilient plants.

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our long-term relationship with these farmers through the AAA Program, they put their trust in Nespresso and planted this new variety of coffee,” Rodriguez says.

It is a seasonal coffee harvested in May and October depending on the terroir.

The result is a profile which Rodriguez describes as “unique”, and a product he says is best served by extracting the coffee in a specially designed tulip-shaped glass that unlocks its floral bouquet.

“The fragrance or aroma, the most important criteria for coffee quality in my view, for N°20, carries notes of orange blossom, accompanied by rich flowery and fruity aromatics and a bright, citric acidity combine to create a coffee with a rare, elegant, and subtle personality,” he says.

N°20 has already earned Q certification by independent non-profit organisation Coffee Quality Institute. Its name, N°20, pays homage to its journey of creation.

“It is the result of 20 years of research, cultivation, and care. To put that into context, it tends to take between two or three years to create a coffee with existing coffee species,” says Rodriguez.

“I joined Nespresso in 1999 and today, 24 years later, I still follow my passion in finding the coffee with the most exquisite taste profile to surprise and please our coffee drinkers. Meeting coffee farmers all over the world, knowing many of them by name and working with generations of farmers, is really what fills my work with purpose.”

The new variety has a limited volume and is available in Nespresso Original capsules. It will also be available in Nespresso’s Vertuo capsules in 2024.

“It is indeed a true milestone for coffee innovation. Not only on a research and development level but to be able to execute over such long period of time,” says Rodriguez.

“This launch expresses Nespresso’s mission of caring for the farmers, the craftsmanship and for coffee cultivation.” GCR

mice is returning 12—14 may 2024

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